


From London With Love

by ZoeLeeAngelis



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), Fifth Harmony (Band), Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band), The Vamps (UK Band)
Genre: Alpha Harry Styles, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, F/F, F/M, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Mob Boss Harry Styles, Multi, Murder, Omega Louis Tomlinson, Organized Crime, Soulmate-Identifying Places, Strangers to Lovers, Suicide Attempt, mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28775562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeLeeAngelis/pseuds/ZoeLeeAngelis
Summary: Louis was just an omega trying to defend his mother and sisters from their father, but one day, the man crossed the line enough to make his mother send the boy away so he could have a life for himself.Now, ten years later, Louis is finally coming back to England for the first time since he left, and he’s coming to stay.But as always, he and his friends seemed to have picked a house with neighbours that will make them do their best to hide everything that happened during those ten years.Louis must learn to reconcile his past, secrets and decide what he can tell or need to keep in the shadows so that he can get his life back on track, and not get himself involved with the mafia. Again.
Relationships: Ally Brooke/Dinah Jane Hansen/Normani Kordei, Calum Hood/Ashton Irwin, Camila Cabello/Lauren Jauregui, Connor Ball/James McVey, Gemma Styles/Lottie Tomlinson, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Jesy Nelson/Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Karlie Kloss/Taylor Swift, Michael Clifford/Luke Hemmings, Niall Horan/Zayn Malik/Liam Payne, Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Perrie Edwards/Jade Thirlwall, Tristan Evans/Brad Simpson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	1. Beginnings always hide themselves in ends

**Author's Note:**

> I had this story previously in portuguese in my profile, but since then I've changed the plot enough that I decided to re-write it in english so more people could read it and I could be satisfied with my writing. Enjoy it.

_Sometimes we just want to be able to leave this world. Leave everything behind and go away, without thinking twice. And sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we fail because of little things that we cannot leave here. Sometimes we just want to be able to kill people who hurt us so we don't have to leave. But my biggest problem is that the person he needed to leave was his father._

_He just wanted to be able to live my life, the way he always dreamed and how he learned from his mother. But his father was a beta, an insignificant beta that had power over his life. And he was just an omega, considered just unnecessary baggage. Mark wanted an alpha, and his mother gave him omegas as his two first children._

_Inside this house, he could keep himself in silence, suffering more each day in silence._

_The cold floor of every corner of the house where he lived was already an old friend of his, the only friend who heard him and let him cry on his shoulder whenever he needed to. The walls were his most cruel enemies, they were the ones who told his father about his conversations and tears with the floor. And in the end, he suffered even more, more than any normal person could handle._

_He wished for a moment to be normal like anyone else, to just get out of this life. Another of his problems is that he had made promises to his mother and felt he would only be able to leave after fulfilling them. She had promised once that she would travel the world, that she would study as hard as she could to get a good job and get Mark off her._

_But it was difficult to do anything when you didn't have the opportunity. But that day, that day gave him something that he never thought to have._

_The cold floor welcomed him with open arms once again that weekend, the week that changed his whole life. The hot tears streamed down his face, passing through their usual paths and falling directly on the wooden floor._

_Blood came out of some cuts on his back that were in the middle of purple spots, making him stay as long as he could so that it didn't hurt any more than it already did._

_Mark had gone overboard, had hurt him more than he normally did._

_It's not like he could have done anything against it. It was him or his sisters, and he preferred that he kept the scars of everything to himself so they wouldn’t suffer._

_His mother tried very carefully to clean his skin, taking advantage of the fact that Mark had left the house to drink more. That was how he lived, of jobs that gave little, and with that little he gave a small part to his wife so she could try her best to take care of their kids while he spent the rest of the money on alcohol._

_His mom also had a job, but they paid little to almost nothing for everything she would do._

_The money of the day only served to survive the day._

_After almost an hour, with his mother doing her best so that his sisters also wouldn't see his body laying in the middle of the room, she finally managed to finish wrapping his entire torso. Even though they were only superficial cuts, they hurt a lot. His skin was covered with purple marks and each one hurt like hell._

_With her help, he sat on the edge of the sofa. He took a deep breath, trying to find a comfortable position so that everything hurt less, which was almost impossible._

_He saw his mother leave the room towards the kitchen and just by the way she moved he realized that she was crying. He tried to wipe away his own tears as best as he could, not wanting his mother to cry even more because she saw him cry, but just moving his arms hurt._

_He was grateful that even though he was hurt, his soul didn't hurt. It would be much worse if it also hurted._

_After a few minutes, his mother came back with a box in hand, kneeling in front of him. He raised his arms and cupped her face, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. He broke into a small smile, not even knowing what he really wanted to represent with that gesture._

_Possibly the best way he would be able to convey that everything was fine, even if it wasn't really._

_“Louis, what I'm going to talk to you about is serious, and I want you to hear me out.” His mother started to say between tears and he just held her face between his palms._

_He looked into her eyes, seeing the sadness that she had there long ago from when she had been forced to marry Mark._

_“You will take this money that I saved all these years and you will have to find a way to disappear. You can't leave a trail, got it? Or Mark will go after you.”_

_He felt his heart breaking inside his chest, more than it already was._

_“Mom, I can't leave you here with him. Please don't do that …” He couldn't hold his own tears anymore. He let them run down his face, letting all of his feelings get out with them._

_Anger that Mark did this and managed to terrify his family so much. Sadness to know what he would have to do. Somehow happiness for thinking he would be free, but anger and sadness for not being able to take his mother and sisters with him._

_“Louis, listen to me. I can no longer see you suffering inside this house and take no action on it. It’s my duty as a mother to protect you, my son, but I now need you to help me. I know how much you've struggled with everything so far, and I would just blame myself for the rest of my life if something happened because I didn't even try to do something.” It was her turn to hold his face._

_It was just them in that little bubble and he just wanted that moment, as sad as it was, to last forever._

_“Louis, I need you to go out that door and not look back. I need you to get a better life, to learn from the world outside. I need you away from here, for your sake. Don't think about me or your sisters now, I want you to think about you. I need you to be selfish enough to get out of here and not come back.”_

_“I can't do this, I can't, I can't leave you here. I can't leave you here with that monster, mom, please…” He spoke between thick tears that streamed from his eyes and stopped in his mother's fingers, where they mixed with some remnants of blood that was still in her hands, his blood._

_“Then promise me you'll come back. But promise me you'll only come and try to do something after you live, after you’ve done everything you want to, after getting yourself friends and find the happiness the world can offer you. Promise me that you will learn from the world everything he wants to teach you before you have to step into this house again.”_

_“Mom, I can’t, if I leave you here he’ll kill you and I can’t let him hurt you, please, mom–”_

_“You’ll get everything you want, but you have to try and try hard.” She interrupted him and then continued. “Learn one last thing from me, Louis. Your enemies are the ones you have to keep closer to you so that you learn from them and don't make the same mistakes they make. You are sixteen, you can go wherever you want and you will do it for us. You will be courageous and fight all the battles life has to give to you before you finish the one in this house.”_

_He just let his tears stream down his face. His body was still weak, but he knew he had to be as strong as he could be, for his mother, for his sisters, for himself. As much as everything caused pain, he had to find strength, no matter what might happen._

_“Louis, I want you to take that money and disappear, understand? You know how to do that, so you will.”_

_And shortly after that conversation, he had all his things ready. He said goodbye to his sisters, his mother, and left. He left that house and never looked back as he entered the forest at the back of the house._

_Everything hurt, but he couldn't stop. With every step he took, he drew strength from places he never thought he would have. As bad as they were, he let bad thoughts invade his head. They made him numb, but numb enough to make his brain give him adrenaline enough to cover the pain up so he could move forward._

_He was moving through the sadness and anger he felt. Sad to leave those he love and angry that he wasn't strong enough to stay there anymore._

_He only stopped walking three days later, when he arrived in the furthest and best located place he could, London. Even with the pain, he tried his best to do what he needed to. He just stopped to pick up some documents in the capital and left the country in less than a week._

_He got on that train to France, just looking back to see if anyone was following._

_When the train passed through Calais, he got out of that train and stopped to think for a few hours. He didn't have a home, a safe place, and Mark was probably after him._

_He decided to take the first bus at the bus station, Dunkirk, it said. He didn't understand a word of what people were saying, so he just went with the flow. He let himself go and disappear into the crowd._

[...]

“In my opinion, it will not work. Again.”

He looked in Olivia’s eyes and rolled his own. He just pressed on the other end of the syringe, letting the liquid flow inside the body of the man who was tied to that chair in front of him, seeing his soul leave his body through his eyes.

“I never said something had to work, Olivia.” Louis said, throwing the syringe inside the bag the girl was holding. It already has bloodied curtains inside with a few other items she was going to burn. “It just needs to do its job.”

“Clean yourselves and put on some clean clothes. The client will arrive in less than an hour.” Diana stated from the other room, where Louis could hear the water running on the sink.

Louis just went to the nearest bathroom, taking off his clothes and taking the towel there, soaking it on water and cleaning the blood from his skin. At least it wasn’t his own, he thought.

When he finished, he got the clothes from the bag that was waiting for him by the door, fishing the most comfortable he had in there and put them on.

He got out holding his bag in one hand and the towel in the other, throwing the towel in the nearest trash bag he could find that was going to the fire. He went outside and put his own bag back in the back seat of the car, going back inside right after.

Olivia was putting on the final details on the place, putting the flowers on the vase she pulled to be near the body. The body itself was in clean clothes, no traces of blood being seen anywhere. He went to the shelves there and took some of the books he deemed to be interesting and threw them in the nearest box that already had some books in it.

He took the two boxes that were waiting there for him to his car, leaving it in the trunk besides some trash bags that were already waiting there.

As he was almost going back inside again, Diana appeared by the door and threw him one more bag, so he went back to the car to leave it there before we definitely went back inside.

It took the three of them just over twenty minutes to leave everything in perfect order, not a drop of blood being left behind. Oliva had done a perfect job by the study room, it was way prettier than it was when they arrived.

When the gang finally arrived by the property, Louis and Olivia were sitting in the hood of his BMW whie Diana had disappeared for the time being. Louis was reading a book while Olivia seemed to be writing something on a piece of paper while she looked over some information in her phone.

The cars and motorcycles stopped just in front of them, but the duo didn’t say anything. Some of the members of the gang followed their way inside the house, coming back after a few minutes and just nodded, the silence still there.

“Have you transferred the money?” Louis asked, closing the book and holding it against his chest while he crossed his arms. Olivia just looked up for a second before going back to whatever she was doing.

“Yes.” The one who seemed to be the leader said, but Olivia just snickered.

“Just sixty percent of it.” She said, finally looking up while turning her phone off.

“It was just one guy, it’s not like the job was hard.” The man said, letting out a laugh. The other members also laughed, but they didn’t seem to be as comfortable as the leader.

Louis took advantage that it was already dark to finally put his plan into the light. He snapped his fingers three times and lights came from some points from the nearest trees. The gang members looked around and finally seemed to feel the cold running around them.

On the trees, stuck on the lower branches, were bodies. Twenty seven by Louis last count.

“Just one guy?” He asked, and the leader gave him back his attention. Louis could see that he was trying his best to not look horrified.

A red laser point appeared on the ground between them, making everyone there pay attention to it. A few other points appeared, and not soon later they were all over the body of the leader.

“Are you going to pay the full price or try to run? I don’t advise on the latter, unless you really want death to come your way.” Olivia asked, having the most bored look in her face.

Louis couldn’t even blame her, he was also bored of dancing this dance again.

“If you want, he can ever do an art with your bodies, leave it in front of the Chesme Church, send the blood to have paint done with it so we can repaint the walls with it.” Louis said, giving him a smirk afterwards. He wasn’t up to doing art today, but he would if he needed to.

“You’re just some Omegas, you can’t do anything.” The leader tried, but Louis was the one who laughed this time.

He held two of his fingers up and three of the red points that were on his body moved to three of his gang members, important ones just by the way they stood.

“So you want me to kill all of them in front of you and leave your body scattered around on the line of the St. Petersburg metro, is that what I heard?” Louis questioned, and the man finally seemed to understand the message. “Why do you never learn, uh? Don’t mess with me, Mr. Ivanov, because I can take both of your children from that house with a front blue door that you live in in just a second.”

[...]

Louis was driving through the streets with the most tranquility he had in the world. From the radio came the only sound that could be heard in the vehicle. He turned ona street, deciding to stop for a moment. He turned off the car, taking a deep breath.

“Do you want to send our things to London already or you want to do one more job?” Diana asked, looking up from her phone.

“I think we can send the things, we did too many jobs, many people are still paying us and we have a lot of money to not care about it anymore.” Louis said, leaning his head back.

“Should I be sad we didn’t kill them?” Olivia asks from the back seat, throwing her body forward and letting her cheek against Diana’s seat. “I didn’t want to, but it was our last job. I wanted to do something fun…”

Diana only let out a laugh, turning to Olivia and kissing her in the forehead.

“Well, it really should have been more fun, but I can’t say I was up to cutting more bodies.” Louis comments, sighing.

They stayed in silence for a second before Olivia decided to talk again.

“If my family knew what we’ve been doing all this years, I think they’ll disinherit me.”

“They wouldn’t do that with you, Ollie.” Louis gets his head up, looking in the direction of the girl. “We’ll go to London, let all the pressure low and maybe we can visit them in a few months so we can all talk. How about that?”

She only gave him a smile and a little nod, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them again.

“I’ll call the moving company we were looking into so they can get our things from that apartment by tomorrow.” Diana takes out her phone and looks into her contact list for a moment before calling one of the numbers.

“I want to visit my aunt.” Olivia gets head up from the seat, looking a bit to the horizon before looking at Louis.

“The one that lives in Nice?” He asks, extending one of his hands to her. She grabbed it, taking a deep breath before nodding. “We can pass there before going up on the map, you don’t need to worry about it.”

They stayed in silence, starting to hear Diana talking with the lady on the phone in russian. He could understand her perfectly, but he wasn’t up to hearing her talk with someone about how big the truck to take their things will need to be.

Olivia was still holding his hand while Diana passed through the final details. She seemed distracted by looking at his nails, nails he was in kind of a need to cut but hadn’t had the proper time to do so.

“They’ll come by tomorrow in the afternoon. I’ll talk with the building lady when we arrive back home.” Diana put her phone away, pursing her lips. “Can I drive? I’m not up to sleeping.”

Louis just shrugged before opening the door and getting out of the car, going to the other side while Diana just passed to the other seat inside the car.

[...]

Eight hour later, around midnight, they arrived back in Moscow. They just left the car in the garage, going up to their apartment. Diana took a moment to go talk with the landlord just a few floors down, but in no time she was up there with them again.

It was quite a mess with all the boxes over the place, and they had just added two more because of the books they had fished from their job.

Diana said she was waiting for some people to appear by the morning since she was selling some of their furniture off so they could put just what they really wanted in the truck to send off to London.

They put some other things inside some other boxes, separating everything till two in the morning. By that time, Olivia had fished some of the drinks they still had in their fridge, throwing herself on the living room floor with a bottle in her hands and the others around her.

“I’ll call Carolina and Cherry, I need to call them.” She was saying, taking another gulp of whatever she was holding. Diana and Louis sat near her, taking bottles for themselves and drowning on it.

“I’ll call them when we leave the city. We can catch them somewhere north.” Louis drank the rest of the bottle he was holding, putting it down and taking a deep breath.

He felt like he shouldn’t drink because he would be very occupied by the morning, but he wanted to. But he wasn’t ready to do that with himself.

“We need to get all the money those people are owing us, we won’t leave this life until we get all the money.” Olivia tried to get another bottle but Diana stopped her.

“We can look this over by the morning, but now you need to sleep.” She said, getting up and pulling Olivia with her. “See you in the morning, Louis.”

“See you, Di.” He answered, taking the bottles that lasted back to the fridge before going to his own room.

[...]

“Do we really need to put fire on this? It just smells, ya’ know.” Olivia said, a frown adorning her face.

“I’m sorry, but it's the best way to send out a message.” Louis answered her, throwing the gas can away, getting out of the warehouse. The smell was starting to bother his sensitive nose way too much.

They had already sent out everything away from their old apartment, and now they were just by their warehouse, the base of their “supposed” gang. Supposed very much since it was just Louis, Diana, Olivia, Carolina and Cherry. But Carolina and Cherry had been away for a year doing some jobs in the south of Europe and just living their best married life.

Supposed because most people thought their little gang was actually a very big one, some people even assuming that they were near a hundred people. No one had the thought that it was just the five of them, but he was ok with it.

So their plan to leave this life behind the best they could was to burn the old warehouse with a quite big number of bodies they had acquired inside. The smell of decomposition wasn’t that bad since Louis was used to it, but he had smelled it too much by that point.

“I’ll just go get something.” Olivia said, getting inside even more. She had a way stronger stomach than him, and Louis considered that to be quite a feat.

He went back to where his car was, sitting on the hood besides Diana. She was smoking a cigarette, but she put it out when he got near.

They just waited there in silence when Olivia got out, holding a small box in her hands and a camera around her neck.

“In my defence, it has been a year since I forgot this here, and I wasn’t up to leaving it behind.” Olivia defended herself, and Louis looked at Diana to see that she had a very much questioning look in her face.

The woman in the leather jacket just shrugged, taking the box and putting it on the back of Olivia’s Jeep. She went to the door of the warehouse right after, lighting her cigarette again.

Louis and Olivia had already gotten inside their vehicles by that point, just looking over and holding their breaths when they saw Diana throwing the lighter she was holding inside while lightening up, seeing the brief look of the flames before Diana closed the metal doors and passed the chain on it.

She got into Olivia’s yellow jeep, and Louis went ahead of them on the highway.

[...]

One burned warehouse and eleven hours of travel to Kiev later and Louis could say he was satisfied. Olivia said she sent an email to all of the people that were owing them money and she had received most of the answers already.

More fourteen hours till Cluj-Napoca, in Romania, and Olivia had put quite an act near some gas barrels when the leader of the city gang said they didn’t feel like paying anymore since everyone of their gang was supposedly dead and they wouldn’t need the money to pay any “employees” like the leader of that gang.

They stopped in a local supermarket parking lot while Olivia was doing a small victory dance waiting for Diana to come out with their snacks. Louis could feel like some people were looking over to them, but it wasn’t like he cared. Most people were just looking because of Olivia’s dance anyways.

Louis had called Carolina and Cherry just the day before and the two said they were going up and going on the cities Olivia listed for them to go collect debt. They would meet up by Genoa in a few days and go to Nice, which was just the most convenient route they could go on.

[...]

After leaving Budapest, Saravejo and Zagreb in their rearview mirror, they finally arrived in Vienna.

Their travel was going quite smoothly with them not stopping and wasting time, taking turns in each other’s vehicles so one could rest while the other two drove. Sometimes they would stop for a few hours just to sleep somewhere not near anyone, but that was just about it.

Olivia was radiating in the last few days. She was upping her game of psychopathy and putting tabs on which people she would need to threaten to put fire and the ones it would all go smoothly.

Diana on the other side was just doing the best she could to defend her fiancée in case something went wrong, but she was also defending her omega, and Louis described that as jealousy of the way some other alphas tried to look in the omega’s direction.

The alpha was quite territorial and protective, and Louis would never hold this against her since she had been in the military for six years before they met.

They were also taking just an hour or two to go over touristic points and take some pictures for their collection, imitating a few old poses of photos they had taken a few years back.

It was around midday when they left Viena and went on their way to Munich.

[...]

Munich was quite an event, or Louis would rather say Germany as a whole thing he wasn’t sure he wanted to unpack.

Right when they crossed the border to Italy he could feel the air become lighter around Diana. The two of them were in the jeep just having small talk while Olivia had almost literally stolen his car so she could go over all of the pendrives he had hidden in his glove box.

Diana and her family were still in a hard path after she had left the military many years ago, them not understanding why she was leaving and her not finding the best words she could to explain how she was feeling like she was falling into an abyss.

Being in Germany only brought up how they still couldn’t have a proper talk about everything that went down years ago and how Diana felt that they couldn’t know about her relationship with Olivia because she was scared they would try to guild Olivia for something she wasn’t responsible for.

Their first stop in Italy was Venice, and after leaving on good terms with the people there and even in good talk. They stopped to enjoy the city, which just meant more photos for their collection.

They went back to the highway and stopped in Milan by night, deciding to get themselves into a hotel there so they could rest properly and even take a proper bath instead of going in wherever they could find.

By seven in the morning they encountered the local gang, already changing a little in their minds that they could be considered proper mafia groups instead of just small gangs like they were used to.

They took a few pictures here and there and ate a very good italian breakfast.

Olivia was still angry at Louis because he stole her lighter right when she was going to light a beta up. The woman was clearly trying to flirt with Diana, and Diana was just holding Olivia in her arms trying her best to send the signals, which seemed to just reflect from the woman.

Louis was grateful someone pulled the other woman away right before Olivia got away from her fiancée’s arms and was ready to get a gun from someone’s hands.

The hate was still visible until they left the town by midday and went two hours south to Genoa.

By five in the afternoon Olivia was way better. They had solved everything with the locals and were just waiting in the parking lot of a shopping center while eating ice cream. And Olivia had already cried her eyes out and had a proper talk with Diana, which was the why for so much ice cream.

Carolina and Cherry arrived in their red jeep, all of them very happy since they hadn’t seen each other in a year already. Cherry was the first to run in their direction, Carolina still maneuvering the vehicle in the spot near them.

Olivia just put down her ice cream before tackling the girl, pulling her in her arms and spinning before letting Cherry back on the grund.

Carolina got out, coming directly to Louis first to give him a hug.

“We missed you guys so much.” She said by his ear, and he only hugged her harder before letting her go, holding her hands in the middle of his. They took a deep breath together, letting smiles in their faces right after.

“We missed you too.” He gave her back, letting go of her hands so he could hug Cherry while she went to cumpriment Diana and Olivia.

“Carol played in two nightclubs in Rome when we passed there, it was so good.” Cherry said, also holding Louis’s hands after their hug.” I’m going to miss Marsala, but it's for the best now, right?

Louis could only give her a nod before she went over to Diana to hug her.

They talked for a while, Cherry stealing most of the ice cream that had been forgotten. Deciding to have a proper dinner, they went to a local restaurant to eat something.

[...]

After dinner, they all already decided to go to Nice. It was just three hours, three hours that Louis spent back in his car, alone. He saw a few times that Olivia and Cherry got the red jeep for themselves and let their alphas in the yellow one when he passed them on the road and went back, like he was dancing.

His songs also were way better than what he had been listening to in Olivia’s jeep, which made sense on why he felt two or three of the pen drives from his collection were missing.

They arrived in Nice around ten in the night, being received by Olivia’s aunt, Gabriela.

It was just a normal thursday, but Gabriela got all of them to go drinking with her in the nearest pub from her house, which was just a block away. By three in the morning they decided to go back to the house, and with nothing to do on the next day, they slept till the afternoon.

They had a proper lunch when they woke up, and Gabriela and Olivia had a heart to heart on the table, not caring much if the other’s listened to it. Olivia felt like she should share her thoughts not only with her aunt but also with her friends, so this was just the best opportunity she was going to get.

A visit to local touristic sights came in the afternoon and during the night, the lights of the city made everyone's general happiness go up.

[...]

They left by saturday’s afternoon after being on the beach the entire morning, adding one more vehicle to their line up.

Two or three years ago, Diana had left her motorcycle in Gabriela’s garage, thinking she would just come back later to get it. The problem was that it wouldn’t turn on, so she left it behind right before they had to go to do a job in Finland.never found a time to come to the city since then, and now she wanted it back.

Gabriela herself had been using the motorcycle for a year before she got her own and would use both so the motor wouldn’t die. The woman was actually happy she now finally had space in her garage again, and Diana could only give her an apologetic smile.

The Indian Roadmaster was a big machine to be in the garage of a small house in Nice indeed.

Cherry decided to go with Louis in his car, the two of them having a quite profound talk while they went on their way to Lyon.

They all slept in a hotel during the night and ate a big breakfast in the morning before going on their way in the city.

After lunch, Louis stole the motorcycle amidst the girls trying to find a new configuration to their travel, Diana only pounting when she realized he had taken the motorcycle before her. They went on their merry way to Clermont-Ferrand and solved their deeds before they got themselves into another hotel.

By five in the morning they were back on the highway, just passing over Orléans before going on their way to Paris.

[...]

It was five in the afternoon when they arrived in the city of lights. The Eiffel Tower was bright with all of the lights already on, only making the sight even prettier. All of the buildings full of history, the lights on, people on the streets walking and going to drink with friends.

Diana and Carolina went alone to solve their things with the mob from the city, leaving just the perfect excuse on why Olivia and Cherry had all the rights to pull Louis to the center so they could take pictures together.

By the time the alphas came back, they had settled on a bar to drink. They did their best to just have conversations in italian, which confused a few people near them that had heard them talking in french earlier.

Carol talked about how grateful those mob people should be grateful that Cherry killed the old mobster of the city a few years back and they shouldn’t be holding their wallets like they didn’t do a favor to them after Charry basically handed the city over to them.

Cherry could only hold her laugh and try to hide behind her glass of bloody mary, thanking no one else around them for speaking proper italian to understand the very heavy accent of her drunk wife. Louis and Diana were not holding themselves and Olivia was only shaking her head while drinking her margarita.

It was only two hours in that Carol could finally let out that she had broken a guys arm for trying to get on their way to talking with the mob leader, and Louis could only give out his best surprised face by the information while Diana kept only laughing.

[...]

On the next day, Cherry and Olivia made sure they all had a photoshoot on the city, making everyone put on some pretty clothes. Other people around them would only stare, but then an old couple came by and asked if Olivia could take some pictures of them too.

She did it very happily, even getting their numbers after so she could send them the photos. They went on their way and the other four could only hold their laughs while Olivia tried her best to be a professional and pretend like that was totally the norm.

By six, Carolina got the motorcycle and Diana took her jeep, the two omegas going in the yellow jeep with Cherry driving it. Louis got himself alone in his car, wanting to think for the time of the trip while they went to Dunkirk.

_Dunkirk._

It had been many, many years since Louis last went to the place. He wished he could say that he maybe fell in love in the place or some bullshit, but he couldn’t lie like that to himself.

He had a strange feeling about the place. It was somewhere just like any other place was, but there was something in Louis’s core that pulled him to the city. He didn’t know if it was maybe because of the beach or something like that, but he wanted to think it was.

Ten years, he remembered. Ten years since his first and last visit. It had been ten years since he had run away from home, run away so he could live.

Dunkirk was his first stop when he left that train in Calais. He made his way to the city walking, just feeling his soul pulling him to the place. It was an instinct, one he didn’t know he had.

It had been years later before he even started to understand what Dunkirk maybe meant to him.

Olivia told him once how she felt the first time she went to Viana do Castelo, a portuguese city on the coastline. She said it was like magic, the most pure form of it, was entering her body. She said it felt like a distant dream, one she wished to live in forever.

And then came Carolina. Carolina was a wild card in the beginning for him. She had an addiction to drugs, which only made him wary of her. The first time he had a talk to her and let his guard down was two months after they met and she started to follow him like the lost wolf she was, just like Olivia and Diana had done before.

They talked about how she was trying so hard to clean herself and get away from all of the drugs, but it was hard. She had a very bad temper while recovering and even tried to run away once, but Louis held on to her, he held her all of the nights that were necessary so she wouldn’t run away and start using the drugs again and pretend like life was perfect.

And one day, shortly after a mission, she told him the story about Marsala. She told him everything, all of her feelings, dreams and fears about the place, and by the end of it, Louis could only conclude that it was just like that between him and Dunkirk.

And now, going back to the city again, he felt like he was floating like a balloon. He could feel a lot of his worries going away by just getting nearer the place, and it gave him hope.

The image of his mother and sister passed through his mind. It had been years since he last saw them in person. Louis had hired a private investigator to take pictures for him from time to time and give Louis updates.

That was also how he knew that Mark was involving himself with the city mob, a very bad decision in Louis’s mind. He was himself in some way part of a mob, but at least he knew he could count on the girls as much as they could count on him. Louis understood how most of the mobs from most cities were, it was an infinite war for power that only resulted in death.

He worried about his mother, but he could feel the hope slipping through the cracks of his soul, the hope that in the end everything would end well.

As he passed the threshold of the city, he fell a little in memory lane. He remembered walking through it and stopping by the board with the city name and passing his fingers on the edge of it before continuing to walk.

As they entered the city, Louis decided to stop by the beach. The girls also stopped there, but Louis was the only to put his feet in the sand. They just waited behind, observing the horizon.

It was around nine p.m. already, but Louis just wanted to look at the sea.

He felt intrigued by the water. He knew how to swim, of course, but it was just this water. The water that reached Dunkirk’s beach had something strange attached to it, a feeling he couldn’t understand what it was.

Louis could feel the water enveloping his body for a second before he shook the sensation away and went back to the sidewalk.

“The place I found for us to stay is just four blocks away.” Carol says as Louis gets near the girls again, offering some of the candy she was eating to him while she talked.

“Let’s get ourselves settled then.” Louis answers her, just shaking his hand as if he didn’t want the candy.

They went back to their vehicles again, going on their way to the townhouse Carol rented.

[...]

By morning, the five of them decided to hit the beach again, But before they went, Carol and Diana left to find a supermarket so they could buy some food for them. Louis was sitting on the sofa reading a book when Olivia finally left her room, a face that clearly passed the message that she wanted to drink something with alcohol.

She threw herself besides Louis, using him as a pillow to take a ten minute nap before she got up again and went to the bathroom to take a bath.

While Olivia was in the bathroom, it was Cherry’s time to get out of her room to get herself a cup of water in the kitchen before she sat on the floor near Louis. He only closed his book and looked at her, who seemed to me thinking way too much.

“Have you found the house we are going to live in yet?” She asked, looking at him.

“Diana said she found one, just an hour by car from the centre.” Louis said, letting his book on the sofa and slipping to the floor, sitting by her side.

“I know that is really for the best, you know, but I have no idea what I’ll do with my life after we arrive there.” Cherry started, bending her knees and crossing her arms on top of them, laying her head sideways on her arms. “I know Olivia will probably get herself into painting and sewing again and Diana will find herself a job somewhere just to fill in time. Carol said she already found a gig or two for a few weeks, but I don’t know what I can do.”

“If it helps, I’m not thinking about doing anything for now. I know it’s hard, but you can give yourself some time, Cherry.”

“I... I was thinking some time ago about something.”

Louis only made a hand motion for her to continue, so she took a deep breath.

“I wanted to get into nursing school.” She said, biting her lower lip right after like what she said was something she shouldn't have said.

“That’s wonderful, Cherry.” Louis cheered, getting up and hugging her. “We can take a look around for somewhere they have it.”

“The thing is that… I wanted to start it in September, next year.” She hugged him back for a moment before both of them let go. “It’s November already and I didn’t want to get in the middle of the year just to get lost.”

“I’m sure we can get our hands in some nursing books for when you decide to start studying, you don’t need to worry about it.”

She just gave him a little nod before hugging him again for a few seconds before the two of them let go when Olivia got out of the bathroom.

“I want hugs too, but what are the hugs for?” She came to where they were, sitting in front of them on the floor. She was already dressed, but her hair was still damp.

“I want to go to nursing school next year.” Cherry said, letting a smile in her lips. Olivia got up almost immediately and jumped on her while giggling.

“This is so amazing!” Olivia beamed, almost tackling the other girl to the floor. Louis could only try his best to hold his laugh, not wanting to interrupt the two of them. “I’ll embroider your name tags myself, you’ll see.”

They let go of each other just in time for Carolina and Diana to arrive, carrying quite a lot of bags for the prospect they would be leaving tomorrow in the afternoon. The two left the bags on the counter and started to put things on the fridge.

“Are you sure you didn’t exaggerate on your shopping trip?” Olivia asked, getting up and going to the kitchen to see what they bought.

“We got some things for the trip tomorrow, it will be right on our dinner time and I didn’t want us to stop somewhere just to eat.” Diana explained, seeming to be separating a few of the bags and leaving them in a corner of the counter next to a microwave they had there. “I know it’s not a long trip, but until we find the right way to come and go from the house it will take a little more time, and we’ll need to wait for the train tomorrow.”

“I could only book for us to leave from Calais by eight tomorrow, so we’ll arrive at the house around eleven to midnight if everything goes well.” Carol comments, leaving the rest of the things there and coming to the living room, staying upright besides Cherry, who hugged her legs. Carol only looked down to give her a smile.

Ten years, Louis thought. Ten years since he arrived in Calais to never cross the border to England anymore. He shivered a little by the thought.

“Let’s go to the beach?” Olivia asked, and everyone just gave her different versions of “yes” in humming.

They all got their wallets and left for their walk.

[...]

Louis was just walking on the sand, shoeless. Sometimes he would stop for a few seconds to dig into the sand with his toes before he kept walking. He was going a little in circles so he wouldn’t be very far from the girls, but they were coming right after him, but way slower.

He was a little lost in thought, feeling some things he didn’t know what they meant.

He got himself nearer the water to test the little theory he had in his head, and as the water touched his feet, it was way colder than he thought it would be. A shiver walked up through his body, making him freeze for a second before he continued to do the same he was doing before, but now in the water’s way.

With each wave hitting he would feel another shiver, but it wasn’t bothering him as much as the clench in his heart.

It was like something was going to happen, but it wasn’t like it was going to happen in a few seconds. Maybe something that happened a long time ago or something that would happen in a distant future, it was just strange to him.

“Louis, Louis.” He heard his name being called and turned around, seeing the girls looking at him expectantly.

“We’ve been trying to call you back to earth for five minutes, are you ok?” Diana asked, her hands in the pockets of the pants she was wearing.

“Yeah, I was just… thinking.” He shot back, putting his free hand in his own pocket. He was holding his slippers on the other.

“So…” Carol started, seemingly something she probably had already said, but was going to repeat for Louis’s sake. “The townhouse we are, it’s for sale.”

“And…?” He tried, not following her line of thought.

“And, you could buy it for yourself, you know, so you can have a place here.” She finished, and Louis was bewildered by the idea.

“We just closed a sale for a house in England, why would I need a place here? I’m not going to live here, we’re going to England tomorrow!”

He didn’t realize the tone he used just after he saw Olivia flinch, which made him take a deep breath and look around.

“Louis.” Carol called his attention again, so he looked at her seriously. “Me and Cherry still have our house in Marsala, in the same way Diana and Olivia have theirs in Viana do Castelo. We aren’t living in those houses, but they’re important, they’re there just as much for us to live as to remind us that we will always have places in our personal paradises.”

“It… This is… It just doesn’t justify in my head, Carol.” He tried, taking another deep breath and tugging on the side loops of his pants before letting his hands rest on his waist. “I can just rent another place if I decide to come here at any time, it’s not as important–”

“No, no, no.” She cuts him off, even making hand gestures so he would quiet down. “Louis, this may not seem important, but it is, ok? It is important, even if you don’t see it right now. Don’t say that this isn’t because all we could do is call you a liar. And I would be the first.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “Until me and Cherry bought the house we have in Marsala, we didn’t feel like we were home in the place we were renting, it was just another place. But when we finally decided to make the decision to buy a place for ourselves, everything changed.”

“Carol, I don’t know if this is a decision I want to make, ok? It's a big one, one I don’t have the mind to do right now.” He thought for a second and turned in the direction of the sidewalk, just letting one last thing slip out of his lips before he went. “I’ll just go for a walk, I’ll see you guys later.”

He took just a last look back before he decided to really take a walk by the coast.

[...]

Twenty minutes.

It took twenty minutes for Louis to finally find the place. He set his mind on it after leaving the beach, but he didn’t think it would take so long to find it. It was just on the other side from the beach, it wasn’t that hard, but it was a big challenge in his messy mind.

He got inside the restaurant and sat at a table near the door, taking his eyes outside. He could still see the beach, and the vision from where he was sitting seemed strange but familiar at the same time.

Louis’s thoughts were interrupted by a lady asking him what he wanted, so he looked up to see exactly who he had been hoping to see.

“A cup of orange juice would do just fine.” He said, repeating something he said once.

The lady looked up from the little notepad she was holding, her eyes wide. She seemed to recognize him, and that he considered a good thing.

“Louis!’ She exclaimed, so he got up just in time before she threw herself on him. “Oh, boy, it’s been so long since I last saw you!”

“I know, I know.” He gave her a few light taps on the back before she let him go, looking over to the counter where a young lady seemed to observe the two without much understandment.

“I’ll be right back.” She said, going to the counter and entering a door right behind it.

It took a few minutes, but she soon came back with a cup of orange juice in one hand and a coffee mug on the other. She left the juice in front of him, who gladly accepted it. He took a gulp of it, seeing that it was almost the same as ten years ago.

“Any special reasons on why you finally decided to come to the city again?” She asked, taking a sip or her coffee before putting the emug down on the table.

“I’m… I’m going back to England.” He decided to tell her, not really seeing any harm in it. “I’m going to live in a house by London.”

“This is wonderful news, Louis.” Linda said, still enthusiastic but just a little less than from seeing him again.

“I’m going with some friends, I think I should present them to you.” He laughed, being joined by her right after.

“Friends, uh?” She gave him a questioning look. “So you could say that the end of the journey wasn’t as important as the friends you made along the way, uh?”

“Yeah, you could put it that way, yeah.” He gave her a smile, almost forgetting  
entirely on why he decided to come after her.

She seemed to notice his face when he started to remember things.

“Is there something bothering your mind, darling?” And he could only nod.

“There’s… There’s something, something about the sea in here, it’s… different, I don’t know.” He tried his best to explain, and she gave him a chuckle back.

“You’re not the first, Louis.” And by his face, she decided that it was for the best that she continued. “A few people have said this to me already, but it’s always different. Try giving me a word so I can see if someone has used that before.”

She looked at him expectantly, bringing her mug to her lips so she could sip on it.

“It’s… I felt memories coming to me, but there was something yesterday…” He tried, but remembered she asked for a word and not a dialogue. So he settled himself on one. “Drowning.”

She choked on her coffee and coughed for a minute before dismissing Louis’s hand that had shot to her back so he could hold her in case something happened.

“I…” She tried, taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh before she continued.. “I can’t say to you what it is, but what I can say is that there are people that come here for their end, Louis. Most of them find it, but sometimes it seems like the universe knows when to make the sea throw them back to shore.”

She stopped for a moment, taking a sip of her coffee and looking around for a second before focusing on Louis again.

“It’s very confusing indeed, and not even I can understand how all of this works, but sometimes I just have the feeling that I need to trust the universe and not interfere with its job.”

Louis only had more questions, way too many questions, but he knew that she couldn’t give the answers of them to him.

He remembered the conversation they had ten years ago, on how he was lost and couldn’t even find himself a purpose. All he felt was cold, a type of cold he couldn’t point out the origin but maybe the reasons. How he left his family behind, how he wasn’t strong enough.

From time to time he would still blame himself for how things went, but that’s why the girls were also here, with him. As much as he helped them, he knew that it wasn’t just a one sided thing, that they would also be there for him.

He just couldn’t grasp the concept of letting other people hurt because of him anymore. He had this sense that he would always be damned to help people to pay for his sins.

“My… My friend, she thinks is the right thing for me to buy a place here for me, for when I decide to visit.” He decided to change the subject, taking a sip of his juice. “It’s… I just don’t see the necessity of doing this, I just bought a house that I’ll be living in for the next few years and… agh.” He let out a frustrated sigh, trying to squeeze the cup on his hands.

“If your friend thinks it’s for the best, and it will not do any harm for you, why not?” He looked at Linda, who was holding a small smile on her lips. “Change is very hard to grasp, I understand that, but if this is your paradise, Louis, and your friends have already lived in theirs and say this is the right decision, why not?”

“I’m not… I’m not going to live here. I’ll be far away in England and it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Does everything really need to make sense now for you to do things? Can’t you just do this one thing and let the world take a few laps around itself before you try to find a good way to explain why you just decided to do this one little choice?” She asked, looking very intently at him.

He could only give her a look back before deciding to take a look around.

It was almost the same place as ten years ago, but of course something would be different. It seems way more happier than before, that was for sure. Something happened while he wasn’t there, but Louis himself didn’t know if he was ready to start unpacking all of that.

The entire city seemed more happy in some way, things weren’t as somber as before.

For a moment he remembered the girls, and he knew that not much time had passed, but he wanted to be near them again. His heart was clenching again, and now he had a reason he could grasp on and one he could just let be a mystery for some more time.

“Your bed is still here.” Linda said, taking him out of his own head. It took a few seconds for him to understand, but soon he remembered what she meant.

She was the one that gave him shelter for the week he spent in the city, she gave him a bed to sleep in the back of this same restaurant while he was trying to recover both from walking so much and the still open wounds he had from the last time his father had beaten him up.

“I had to throw away the pillow, but the mattress is still in my office.” She said, and for some reason Louis knew she wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but he wasn’t going to press her about it. It was just something trivial.

“Helped a lot of people after me?” He decided to ask, drinking the rest of his juice and letting the cup rest on the table.

“A few… here and there.” She spoke slowly, choosing well her words.

“Good.” He got up from his seat, taking his wallet out from his back pocket and leaving a five euro bill on the table. “I’ll be going, what time do you close here?”

“Depends on the day, today maybe around ten, clean everything till midnight.”

“I’ll come back for dinner then.” He gave her a smile, getting out of the store.

Before he got too far away, Linda called him up. He turned back in her direction, seeing her by the door of her restaurant.

“It only hurts if you let go of the opportunity you had.” She said, and before Louis got to ask what she meant, she just got back inside.

He stayed frozen there for a second before he turned again and decided to go looking for the girls.

[...]

Around dinner time, Louis and the girls came back to the restaurant. They had dinner there, Louis presented the girls to Linda and the woman stayed with them at the table, so small talk was exchanged. The pleasant type of small talk at least.

They got out of the place just a few minutes she closed, right before ten, giving her a wave. Louis saw her taking her phone from her pocket and calling someone, still with a small smile before she got inside the restaurant and locked the front door.

They went back to the townhouse, Olivia throwing herself on top of Louis on the sofa. He could only laugh when Cherry decided to do the same, Olivia letting out a little squeal.

Diana and Carol just sat on the floor near the sofa and turned on the tv. They watched it until midnight when Diana decided to call it a night when she saw Olivia half asleep, still laying with Cherry and Louis.

The two of them went to their bedroom, closing the door behind them. It wasn’t long after when Cherry got up and went to her own bedroom, but Louis held Carol before she went after the other girl.

He made a sign for her to sit with him, the sound of the tv mixing in with the background.

“I’m sorry for earlier.” He said, holding her hands between his own. “I–”

“You don’t need to apologize, Louis.” She cut him off, looking at him for a second before letting her eyes fall down a little and to the side and down. “I was pressing you, you got mad. I understand.”

They stayed in that comfortable silence for a minute before Carol decided to speak again, turning her attention back to Louis.

“I’m sorry for pressing, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why?” He asked.

“Why what?” She asked back, confused.

“Why do you think I should… Why do you think I should buy a place here for me? And I don’t want to hear you say ‘because yes’ again, I know there is something else.”

She sighed, letting go of his hand and crossing her arms, thinking a little before she decided to speak.

“You know when we talked a few years ago, on why you decided to help me? That feeling that you should do something both because it feels right and because you feel like something bad is going to happen if you don’t act?”

Louis could only nod, and she lowered her head, taking a deep breath.

“It's strange to feel this, like something will happen and I can’t do anything besides say to you that buying this place is the best advice I could ever give you.”

He stopped to think for a second, seeing that it was obvious the decision he wanted to make.

“See with the owner in the morning so we can have a deal and transfer everything before we leave here.” He says, and Carol shot her head up. “Don’t make me regret this, you understand? I’m putting my trust on you right now.”

He just got up and went up the stairs to his bedroom.

[...]

Around six in the afternoon they were leaving Dunkirk behind.

Louis had indeed signed the papers and gave the money to the old lady that used to own the townhouse they stayed for the last two nights. The keys of it were thrown in his pile on the glovebox of his car, just besides his pen drive collection.

There were a lot of keys there, and now only the ones for his new place didn’t have a tag on it.

He had said his last bye to Linda and left with the girls, alone again in his car.

He would send someone to do a better evaluation of the house in a few weeks, change a few things. But now, he had only to worry about his house in England.

It took them just a little over an hour to arrive in Calais and pass the border control. They waited until the time of their train, Olivia dancing on the waiting area with Diana, entertaining a few others that were also waiting there.

When time finally came, they went to board the train, Diana separating from them since she was driving her motorcycle.

Almost an hour later they finally arrived on the other side of the tunnel, going on their merry way after finding Diana again.

Louis was paying attention to the road, but at the same time his mind was flying away through the clouds.

He was coming back to the country he has postponed for so many years. He had even visited the US once when the girls wanted to go to New York, but they would never set a foot in England. It was almost the same with the girls, but they would pass near to where their families lived, visit them, that was another story.

Louis knew he wasn’t visiting his family for now, that he had to find the best way to approach the whole situation. His father was involved in the local mob of Doncaster, and with a mob on the way his job only got harder.

He was used to working for them, doing jobs here and there to fulfill like always, but now he would need to work against them, the two way street he wished he didn’t have to cross.

In some form or another, Louis was going to need to find someone to help him, and he hated to ask for help. He wasn’t this type of person, he would always do everything himself. It took years for the girls to break into his shell so they could help him, and since then they’ve been working on it, a step at a time.

He shook himself a little, trying to picture the best case scenario that all of his endeavors could bring him, and in that case would be to have his mother and his sisters by his side, healthy and loved.

Just a little after ten they arrived by the office of the real estate agent in Kensington, who seemed more like a little house than a proper office. But Louis wasn’t the one who was going to judge now, he was always doing business in the middle of forests and streets where cars would rarely pass by.

Diana was the only one who got inside, holding her helmet in one hand and knocking on the door with the other. An older gentleman opened the door and let her in, where they stayed for around ten minutes before the sir and Diana got outside, the man going for his car that was parked on the other side of the street.

They went on their way, following the car to the outskirts of the city and into some dirt road.

It was really an hour away, like Diana had said before. It seemed a lot of time but they didn’t have much intention of commuting besides to buy some things here and there. It was good enough for them not to care.

The dirt road soon became a gravel one when they passed through a metal gate, only taking less than five minutes for them to stop in front of the house.

There were trees surrounding the entire place, and just by looking at the house he could see that the garage attachment wasn’t as old as the principal part of it. It wasn’t ugly, but a slight reframing of the exterior wouldn’t hurt. just enough to make everything match.

Louis got out of his car, looking around while the real estate agent was talking with both Carol and Diana, Olivia and Cherry both already taking a few of their baggage off the back of their jeeps.

In the distance, there was a house, and Louis could only see it because of the few lights coming from the inside of it. It was probably just half an hour of walking to arrive there, but he wasn’t going to bother himself with that now. That house was probably double the size of the one he was going to live with the girls, and he could only ask himself who cleaned the place.

Louis got nearer the two alphas, listening in on what the agent was explaining to them about the garage. And he was right when he assumed it wasn’t as old, just around fifty to sixty years old.

The agent, realizing he gained the attention of another person, gave a ring full of keys to Diana, who passed it to Louis without thinking much. He went to the front door, looking on the tags and finding the right one.

_It was a new life, a new beginning._

Louis unlocked the door, opened it and observed the inside.


	2. Sometimes, drowning is just the next step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Mention of Attempt Suicide

The waves broke by the beach and went just a little further before the sea called the water back. The sun was in its final stage of blending itself with the horizon but the sky was dark with the rain clouds overhead.

Life seemed so… problemless when he was there, just watching the sunset at five in the afternoon before the rain decided to fall. For a second he could forget everything and just put his head into that, observing.

For a second more he could say that there wasn’t anything wrong with the world and that they could leave him there forever in that moment, but the real world always comes to nudge you in the ribs with an elbow, hard.

Harry looked around, seeing a few other people on the beach taking pictures or just walking and talking with someone.

He looked back to the sidewalk, seeing his car with two others stopped there, Liam walking around while talking with someone on the phone and Niall sitting inside Liam’s car taking a nap in the front seat. He couldn’t see Zayn, but he was probably sleeping on the back seat.

Taylor was sitting on the hood of the last car, writing something on her iPad while listening to something in her headphones. She was concentrated on her task, and Harry wouldn’t doubt if she was doing a spreadsheet again. She loved those for some reason.

He started walking back to the street and passed the cars, going to the other side of it. He stopped in front of the restaurant, Linda seeming to feel his presence since she came by the door and leaned against the frame.

“A last cup of tea from me?” She asked, and Harry only nodded.

She went inside and to the back, Harry taking a seat by a table near the door. He looked outside and took a deep breath.

Many years ago, he crashed on the city. Not in the literal tone of crashing, but just as found. His mental health wasn’t the… best. He had tried to kill himself many months before and it was because of Liam that he was alive.

Sometimes he felt pathetic admitting that yes, he did indeed try to kill himself, and the last thing he was looking for was attention from someone. He did it right after Liam left the apartment he was living on, thinking it would take at least two days before someone came in looking for him, but Liam forgot his wallet under the coffee table.

Harry was in the bathroom laying in the tub with a stomach full of his meds when Liam decided to see if he was ok. They cleaned his stomach in the hospital and he had to stay there for three weeks after.

He was just… Harry couldn’t explain what came to him. He could see part of his family falling apart and his head just couldn’t take it. His grandparents, the ones who nurtured him more than his father ever did, had died in a car accident.

His father was a boss, he had everything in his hands, and Harry knew he was going to be the next in line after his father. And he just didn’t want it. He saw how much his grandpa’s health deteriorated by following his own father’s steps, and Harry didn’t want to be the next.

He was already suffering too much with things in his head and commanding an entire mafia was just going to worsen it.

Harry saw in his mother and in his sister’s eyes how worried they were after his suicide atempt, it wasn’t like he could lie and say it never happened. They were in the hospital with him for a week before Liam came to stay in their place so they could rest before deciding to come back.

This numb sensation was covering his entire body, and he just couldn’t feel anything.

The shittiest thing that happened during all of the time in between his hospital visit and finding Dunkirk was his father trying to push omegas on top of him. Harry couldn’t feel anything and his father was being a dick in thinking an omega could solve every mental problem he had like his parents didn’t have their divorce finalized just a month before.

Then, Dunkirk came.

It wasn’t like Harry had never gone to the place before, he had visited around three times when he was younger, feeling the home feeling the place gave him. But he never went after his parents started to fight and his mother asked for a divorce, right when Harry was still twelve years old.

His alpha presented itself one night his father was screaming with his mom, and he leaped in front of her, his dark wolf form imposing on the room. He could hear his sister gasp from behind the wall she had been just seeing the fight happen, too young to be able to do something.

He was small, hsi wolf wasn’t as big as it was these days, but it was enough for his father to just leave the house. Harry cried in his mother’s arms for hours after that.

Harry already knew at the time that it meant both that he would be the next in line in his family business and that he was on his father's side of the equation in regards to mental health problems.

It’s rare for someone to be able to transform into a wolf, but him being a descendant of someone who could only increase the chances. Other wolf’s were drawn to each other, and that is how he and Liam became best friends right on the first day Liam moved to his school.

They became close for numerous other reasons, one of the other ones besides both of them being able to transform into wolves being that Liam’s father started to work with his father.

Liam would tell him sometimes on how he felt that his father wasn’t on his best judgement when he made that decision and how he was sad that his mother didn’t take everything easily when she first received the news.

He would say how he felt like his father betrayed his mother, and Harry couldn’t agree more.

When Liam first started to date here and there, some people would also try things with Harry. And being young, he felt the pressure of it being put on his shoulders just like he felt when he first realized his fate.

His experiences weren’t the best ones, some of the omegas he tried to have a thing with seemed to transform into power hungry monsters when they started dating and would try everything to be back together when Harry put an end in the relationships.

A lot of people knew he was the next in line of the mafia of London just like his father, and he couldn’t be more disappointed on how people went after him just because of what he could provide them in the future.

Being in the mafia mostly always meant money, a lot of it. And Harry’s family was old on that business.

Liam also had some bad experiences in the dating world when people discovered his father became Harry’s father right-hand, and the two decided to quit the dating scene together by the young age of sixteen.

And Zayn came to break their promise of not dating anyone just a year later.

Liam was so obsessed with the poor alpha that he wouldn't leave Zayn alone, and that was the first time Liam’s father beated him in public, in front of everyone in the middle of a reunion that he and Harry already had to attend.

It ended so badly that Harry couldn’t remember in which moment we jumped on Liam’s father and which he was being held back by Liam while someone tried to tend to Liam’s father's injuries.

Zayn was supposed to be just a worker, someone who did the dirty things for both their fathers without questioning the morality of everything like always. Liam’s father saw their not even existent relationship both something dirty and the worst sin his son could commit, and that would be laying in bed with another alpha.

Zayn started to spite the man so much that he was the one who did the first step in their relationship, and Harry could only try his best in holding his smirk when he saw the older man’s face when Zayn pulled Liam into a kiss right before another reunion started on another day.

Harry was eighteen when he first tried to gulp down all of his pills and was hospitalized instead.

Harry was twenty when he decided to go to Dunkirk to end everything after many failed attempts.

He was so numb that he couldn’t remember when he arrived there, he couldn’t remember the second he sat on the sand and just observed the sea.

The moment he came back, the only thought he had in his head was that he was sad he would never have the opportunity to meet someone that would make his world go crazy like Liam had. He got up to his feet and just walked into the water after that.

What he wasn’t counting on was the storm that came just minutes after he had been swimming to the deepest part he could get himself to before he lost his strength and just drowned.

The ocean trashed him around, and already giving everything up he just let himself be trashed around. He lost consciousness not long after and he thought it was sad he didn’t say goodbye to his sister.

His sister, who had also been doomed with their father’s family curse of becoming a wolf and having the worst mental health the universe could ever give someone’s DNA.

It was years after this that they discovered that their mother could also transform herself into a wolf, but that wasn’t something he wanted to unpack since at least her side of the family was an eleven compared to the minus a million his father’s side was.

When he came back again, Harry was laying on the sand with just his upper body out of the water. He coughed everything he had the right to and just got himself a last boost of energy to get out of the water and sit under the drizzle, a few meters away from the sea by the sand.

He just stayed there, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. He only became aware of his surroundings again when he felt the rain not falling on his skin anymore.

Harry got his head up and saw a woman sitting by his side. She had an umbrella covering them from the rain in one hand while she was doing aleatory patterns on the sand in front of her.

“ _You know…_ ” She had started. “ _The sea here is a very intuitive one when it comes to taking people to the after life._ ”

And he could only send her a confused look before she looked at him and chuckled, her explaining to him a few years later that his face was funny in her eyes.

“ _I can’t explain it myself, you know. I tried doing the same you just did many years ago, and the sea just sent me back to the beach. It will take some time for you to see the bigger picture on why the universe is always trying to save you so much, but one day you will understand._ ”

After that, they stayed in silence for almost an hour before she got up and brought him to her restaurant. Linda presented herself after giving him three different towels and a bow of hot soup.

He had sat himself fright by the door to not smear sand all around the place.

When the night finally arrived, she let him sleep on a spare mattress she had in the back, apologizing for the smell saying she had let an omega sleep there not many days ago, but he could never complain about it.

Harry remembered when he and Liam had a talk after that reunion where Harry beat the crap out of his best friend’s father, he remembered how Liam described things for him related to Zayn.

“ _It’s just… Do you remember when I said to you how much I liked honey for some reason? It’s literally him. I feel like I’m in heaven, like the angels just took me to the afterlife and I just lay on the clouds for the first time without needing to think about anything or worry about silly human things. It’s like I could just let out my wolf and run forever without worrying about trivial things, like what people will think about me for loving another alpha._ ”

Harry felt like that with that smell, with the smell from that pillow. He spent the next two nights with his nose buried in it, trying to capture all of it just for himself.

By the third night, Liam appeared in Dunkirk with Taylor by his side. The two had dated before but she was one of the ones that just didn’t want anything to do with power and became his friend afterwards.

She entered in his family business two years later when his father passed down the throne to him, too weared off to actually take proper care of everything and prosper.

The two of them didn’t let go of Harry for the rest of the day and stayed by the city for one more day before deciding it was time to go back to England. Linda just gave Harry that pillow before he left, and he couldn’t be more grateful to her.

He would always wake up during the night after having nightmares, but it was like they never existed when he was near that smell. And it didn’t matter how many visits he made or letters he sent to Linda, she never told him who this mysterious person was.

“ _Let life go through it’s natural course, Harry._ ” She would say.

He admitted he tried many times to look for people with smells at least similar to the ones in the pillow, but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t.

He had even opened a nightclub in that time, hoping someone could be a match in the middle of dozens of all the bodies. Once in a while he would find someone with a smell that resembled one of the ones he could remember, but it never lasted. 

With time, the smell faded away and only the memory of it remained. 

He tried to get himself into new relationships, search for other smells he could like. He indeed found some here and there, but after another bad experience in the dating world, Harry decided to leave it behind and just focus himself into business.

Maybe that’s how the universe wanted him to go with his life, and he was doing just that. Creating his own little empire, doing things with the few people he deemed worthy of getting near him.

“That chair always makes people think and talk, uh?” Linda remarked, bringing Harry back to present times instead of flying through memory lane.

“It seems like.” He said back, accepting the cup she offered him. He held it between his hands, blowing on the steaming tea before he took a sip.

She was drinking her own tea, looking a little to the horizon before she looked at him again.

“My birthday is in the end of January, you know.” Linda remarked, putting her cup on the table and crossing her arms, wiggling her eyebrows once. Harry could only let out a laugh, letting his own cup on the table.

“Mine is on the first day of February.” He added, also giving her an eyebrow wiggle. She laughed, shaking her head while she retrieved her cup again.

“Are you going to come by then? I want to test my new cake recipes on you.”

“I’m a test boy now? What happened with the ‘stop whining, you basically own this town’ from last time?”

“I don’t care if you control the underground of, I don’t know, ten towns, you gonna be my test boy if you come.”

“I could bring you to England for once, no?” He asked, taking his tea and sipping on it.

“You could, but last time I went to that house of yours I had to steal someone’s credit card to buy something healthy for those people you live with, and to you too.”

“Just send me a list of the ingredients and Taylor will go to the supermarket to buy them for you.” He put his cup down again, holding both of his hands together on top of the table. “And you don’t need to worry about our eating habits, Niall has been directing us in the kitchen so he can kick us out after cutting all the vegetables for him.”

She laughed, only shaking her head before emptying her cup.

“I’ll go then. What about Christmas?” Linda inquired, one of her brows arched.

“We don’t know yet, some of them will be working until late and it seems kinda pointless for us to do something extravagant.” He replied, finishing his own tea and leaving his cup next to hers.

“I’ll go visit my mother probably, see what she has been up to.” She sighed, Harry only giving her a nod.

He took a look on his watch, seeing that it was time to go before they lost their train. She seemed to see how he took a deep breath and the two of them got up, Linda hugging Harry and simply directing to the outside of the store.

“See you, darling.” She said, waving at him before she got back inside and went to do her chores.

Harry only gave her a wave back and went to his car, Liam and Taylor already seeing Harry coming back and getting inside their own vehicles. They turned on the vehicles and went on their merry way to Calais.

[...]

“Seven percent more in Lux, five in Sugar and final stages of constructions by Fly that you need to overlook before we send in the order with the guys.” Taylor rushed through her relatories, seeming much more fidgety for her normal self.

Harry only gave her a look, and when she finally looked up from her iPad she only sighed before looking out the window.

“What happened?” He asked, getting up from his chair. She looked back at him, lips pursed.

“There was a massive fire in a warehouse in Russia, and I’ve been receiving messages all day from the council. Some people who had debt with them received either an email saying to pay all of the debt before the fire catches them too and some have been receiving visits from some people to collect the rest of it in person.”

“What does this have to do with us?”

“I don’t… I don’t know, they think we can help stopping them or some shit like that, like other people had to pay for their debts. They got the debt in the first place and think that other members of the council should help them pay or something.”

Harry could only laugh, shake his head and put his hand in the pockets of his pants.

“And you replied to them?” He questioned.

“Of course I did, I had to. I’m the one who answers to them in your name, you bastard.” She gave him a light slap on the shoulder, and he gave her a hurt look back. “I really like what I do, but them sending messages from five to five seconds is starting to hurt my head.”

“Well, at least I don’t need to answer their messages.” He said, and Taylor looked at him with an offended aura around her before she got the nearest pillow by the sofa in his office and threw it in his face.

He laughed, caughting the pillow before it hit him in the face and used it to protect himself from the next one she threw.

“Are you still up to trying to have neighbours?” She asked, going to collect the fallen pillow she had just thrown.

“Why you ask?”

“Gerald, that real estate agent, called me this morning to ask my opinion since you didn’t answer your own phone.”

“Why would I have something to say if he’s the one selling the house?”

“You know why.” She looked intently at him. “It was a battle to take that psycho lady from near us last time. I still wish I had kicked her in her private parts that time she came screaming saying she was going to call the police and calling Jade a whore. I should’ve kicked her ass.”

“If you had literally kicked her ass and not just figuratively you know she would have reasons to call the police on us.”

“But– Fuck it, I don’t want to remember about her anymore.” Taylor sighed, hugging the pillow. She had put her iPad on the window sill and he hadn’t even realized. “I said to Gerald that he could sell the house if he wanted to. So maybe we’ll have new neighbours, maybe more enjoyable ones this time.”

He only nodded, throwing the pillow he was holding back on the sofa and going back to his chair.

“Did Karlie send you the relatories from the US?” Harry asked, Taylor putting her own pillow back on the sofa and grabbing her iPad from the window again.

“She sent it to me yesterday, she said she’ll come here next week to stay for some time while Coulson takes her place in New York.” She said, sitting in one of the chairs on the other side of the table.

[...]

Harry wiped his hands on the towel that was hanging over his shoulder looking at the body of the man fallen in the ground, still bound to the chair Harry had put him in. He was still alive, of course, but it would take quite some time for him to be up and ok again.

He left the room, taking the towel from his shoulder and carrying it in his right hand, looking around at everyone outside doing something with their time. Harry could see the splatters of blood on his white shirt, only thinking how much of a waste that was.

Following his way to his office, he’s surprised to find Liam inside, seemingly waiting. The other looked up from his papers, making a disgusted face when he saw Harry’s shirt.

“You’ll need a bath to take the smell from you.” He comments, looking intently to Harry while the other sits on his chair, being careful to not just let his back touch the back of the chair.

“I know. I’ll do just that when you tell me what you have for me.” Harry says, putting the towel on the edge of the table where there wasn’t anything on.

“Just some papers in regards to the Princess Park that you want so much.”

“Are they going to sell it?”

“Yep.”

“So what do you need from me?”

“Just your signature in some papers so I can finalize everything without bothering you for the next few days.” Liam put the little pile he was holding in front of Harry, giving him the pen he had in his shirt pocket.

While Harry did his part, Liam was just lost in thought. Thinking too much and too little.

“Did Taylor tell you about the new neighbours?” He asked, Harry getting his head up to look at him just for a moment while he put the paper he just signed to the side so he could continue doing his thing.

“I didn’t see her today, she left before I woke up. Today is a gym day for her.” Harry commented, flipping the page again to sign on the next line he had to.

“According to her, there were two trucks, and none of them were from not even near England.”

Harry stopped and looked up, Liam’s lips pursed while his hands were resting on his lap, together.

“What do you mean? Where were they from?”

“Russia.” Liam said, leaning back on the chair while he took a deep breath. “She said they just got in the house and Gerald was waiting there. They put everything inside and left.”

“Is there something more besides that?”

“No. They just put everything they had in the truck inside and Gerald locked the place again. She talked with him when she found him on the road when she was coming back and he seemed happy to have finally sold the place again.”

Harry shrugged then, looking down at the papers and signing the two left, taking the pile and giving it back to Liam with the pen.

"Let's just hope nothing will happen.” Harry says, in reference to the other people that lived in the house before.

Liam just nodded, leaving the office while Harry went to the bathroom he had in there.

He looked at himself in the mirror, having a good feeling about something he couldn’t say what. He just shook his head after a minute or two, taking off his clothes and putting himself under the spray of the shower.

[...]

Harry went to much more reunions in three days than he would normally go in a month. He was feeling emotionally drained after going to four in a roll where he screamed in three and used his alpha voice in one.

He didn’t even know how he got out of his bed in the morning, but now he was just laying on the couch in his office by one of the warehouses when he received the call.

He restrained himself from screaming when he saw Linda's number pop in his screen, accepting the call as soon as he saw it was her.

“Hello, Harry?”

“Yes, it's me.” He answered, getting his body up to a sitting position. He let his upper body flop forward, curving his back. “You ok?”

“Ah, yeah, yeah.” She sighed right after, not sounding that well for him.

“Did something happen?”

She hummed affirmatively.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I–” She cut herself and Harry heard her take a deep breath before she started again. “I had a bad feeling last night about something last night and… I couldn’t say what it was. I called my mother and we talked for a few hours until I felt better. But… The place where she had been staying called me a few hours ago to inform me that she had passed away and– I just didn’t know who to call, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry, Linda.” Harry said, already getting up and getting himself one of the coats he kept in his office. “Linda, where is she going to be buried?”

“Lille, in the family crypt. My… My aunts called an hour ago. They said it will be ready in a few hours so we can say goodbye to her.” Harry could hear her already crying but doing her damn best not to show.

“I’m leaving London in five minutes, I’ll pass by your house so we can go together, ok?”

“Harry, no, you don’t need to do this, you have things to do in London and–”

“Linda, I’m not backing out. You need someone there with you and I’ll be that someone.” He said, getting out of his office and going down the corridor, grabbing the keys of his car in his pocket and following his way to the garage.

“Ok… Thank you, darling.” She said, Harry only saying a last bye before he entered his car and backed out from the garage, going to the street.

Right when he entered central London and stopped on the first stoplight, he called Taylor.

“You don’t have any reunions today, Harry, go to sleep.” Was the first thing she did when she picked up the phone.

“I know, I need you to buy me a ticket for the Eurotunnel for three hours max.”

“What happened, Harry?”

“Linda called me a few minutes ago. Her mother died. I’m going there to be with her.” As he said, the green light came and he put the phone on speaker on top of his leg while he continued his way down the street.

“Oh… Give my condolences to her. I’ll send you the ticket in a few minutes, ok?”

“Thank you, Tay.”

He ended the call and threw his phone on the passenger seat besides him. On the next stop light, he got his passport from the glove box and put it into the intern pocket of his coat.

[...]

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Harry looked at Linda, who had her arms crossed in front of her. He could see her clear red eyes and the way she looked around. She was shivering, the coat she had chosen not being the best one for the cold weather.

"Let's go then, my cousin called me just a few minutes ago and they said the body will be liberated in just an hour.” Linda said, getting inside the car without much ceremony.

Harry only took a deep breath, getting inside the car again and going on the way he knew to leave the city.

“Linda, I–”

“No, not now, please.” She cut him off, her hands holding the upper part of her seatbelt.

Harry only nodded, turning on the radio on the lowest volume, just enough so he could hear the news.

It was just an hour from Dunkirk to Lille but the silence made it seem like hours had passed before they arrived in the city. Linda was silent the entire time and the radio was the only thing filling in the silence.

Harry knew how that was, how the silence could speak more than you yourself could when you just lose someone you’re close with. And he wasn’t going to initiate the contact, he knew he had to wait.

They stopped by the funeral house, Harry seeing a quite big quantity of cars already there. Harry grabbed the black tie he had in his glove box, tying it around his neck and grabbing the suit jacket he had in the back seat and swapping with his coat.

He put the coat over Linda’s shoulder, her only giving him a grateful look before the two of them entered the place.

Harry had seen photos of her family before, but being there and looking at them in such a moment wasn’t something he was prepared to do. Linda’s arm was linked to his, Harry feeling the alpha shake.

The silence of the place was almost too much to him, but he just continued to walk with Linda until they reached the casket where her mother’s body was.

He let her go alone, staying a meter or two behind so she could have her private moment. He kept an eye on Linda, making sure she was ok. He was so glad he had Liam by his side by the time his grandparents died and now he just wanted to make sure Linda would also be ok.

She stayed there frozen for a few minutes, Harry picking up the prayer she was reciting under her breath. He could also hear the conversations that started behind him too, put he wasn’t paying attention to them.

After a minute or two, Harry picked up on what Linda was saying, murmuring the same thing under his breath. He wasn’t a religious person, it wasn’t like God could protect him from everything he did in his daily life, but he picked up things with his grandma when she was still alive.

She was a very religious person, and Harry saw how that helped her live under all the atrocities she saw in all the days of her life. He admits trying when he was younger, a little before she died. But when he saw her corpse in that casket, his beliefs just flew out the window.

Harry gave a few steps forward, putting his hand on Linda’s shoulder when he realized that she had finished her prayer. She looked at him, Harry seeing the clear tears rolling down her face. He enveloped her on a hug, her tears falling on his shoulder while he just tried his best to comfort her.

It took a few minutes before she let him go, Harry cleaning the tears of her face with his thumbs while he was holding her face. She gave him an assuring nod before he let her go, going on her way to sit on a nearby bench.

He turned his attention to the casket, putting his left hand on the shoulder on the woman and murmuring a simple Hail Mary before he turned around and went to where Linda was seated.

He sat by her side, holding her hand between his while he saw other people going to the coffin to give their last goodbyes. Most of them stopped to acknowledge Linda, Harry only being there in silence while she exchanged a few words here and there.

Almost an hour later, with the most immediate family already in the vicinity, the priest arrived to do his prayer. It was another hour until he finished and they finally closed the casket.

The workers of the funeral house got the casket and loaded it on their car, Harry and Linda going right after them.

They went through the streets of the city, going on their way to the cemetery. 

The cemetery had an eerie feeling to it with all the rain clouds on the sky and the light fog by the ground. The fog was recent since Harry could remember that there was just a very light mist covering everything when they were entering the city.

Maybe it was just a thing about cemeteries, being cold, eerie and unhappy.

The rest of the whole thing was rather uneventful. The cemetery workers opened their underground family vault and the casket went down to be put in place. Linda was the only one that went down there with the priest and the workers, not taking long before they came back.

The priest did a last prayer with everyone before they closed the vault again and that was it. Harry heard someone asking Linda if she was going to go eat something with the rest of her family but just she just denied.

Linda and Harry went to the place Linda directed him to go, Harry realizing it was the retirement home her mother was living before. He stopped the car in one of the parking spots, both of them going inside.

Harry waited more by the entrance while Linda went to talk with someone in the reception.

After around ten to twenty minutes one of the nurses appeared with a box and gave it to Linda, passing on a sympathy smile before the two went back to the car.

“We were talking about me being single, you know.” Linda started when they were almost leaving the city, and Harry only let her. “She said to me that she didn’t care she wouldn’t see me getting married and have a family of my own, she said that whoever I choose to get old with had her blessing. She even said that she didn’t care if I never married, that I should just be happy and remember that I have people by my side.”

By that point, she was talking behind tears. Harry saw her trying to clean her face with the sleeve of the coat she was wearing underneath his, that was still over her shoulders.

“I only thought that it was silly that she was saying those things to me yesterday, you know? I didn’t even say to her that I had a bad feeling about something, but she knew. She said that I should trust the universe with whatever it was doing but I just wanted to hug her before she was gone.”

The box had already slipped to the floor and Linda brought her feet to the seat after taking off her shoes. She was hugging her legs, letting her head on top of her knees.

“We hadn’t seen each other in months, I was so occupied in trying not to do something dumb or drive my resturant to the mud after not opening so many days that I didn’t even thought about coming to Lille, having a proper talk with her in person. I–”

“Linda, she would never guilt you of putting yourself first in your priority list.” Harry cutted her off, reducing his speed just a little so he could find the nearest petrol station on the map of his GPS. “You should never think that way because she would be so happy to see you putting yourself first. You’re not being selfish by putting yourself first after you’ve helped so many people, Linda.”

He found a petrol station just a kilometer away, so he put the route to that one. The silence was only broken by the sound of Linda crying, but besides that they didn’t talk. Harry knew that he should’ve let her just speak, but the route she was going on was so unhealthy that he couldn’t just let that pass.

They had helped each other for ten years by that point. She told him everything that passed through her mind and helped to pay a therapist for her for around five or six years before she said she wasn’t going to go anymore. He knew he should have insisted at the time that she continued but his _job_ was pulling so much of him that he visited her less during a year or two before he got himself back on track.

It was because of her that he himself had gone on therapy for four years just so he could work on some things that were incapacitating him before he had to give it a quit since he started traveling too much to keep a good schedule.

He stopped the car in one of the parking spots by the side, turning off the car and taking a deep breath before he turned to Linda.

“Hey.” He called her.

Linda got her head up, looking at him in the eyes. It was undeniable the sadness she was carrying, but there wasn’t much he could do besides stay by her side. He knew in some time in the future this would hit ten times harder, and he was sad he couldn’t just take this off her shoulders.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

He kept it simple, unbuckling her seatbelt. She let it go and waited a few seconds before hugging him, laying her head on his shoulder.

They must’ve stayed there for least ten minutes before Linda calmed down enough that they left the car and went to the convenience store there. Harry got a few snacks while Linda pulled two bottles of wine and brought it to the counter. Harry paid for everything and they went back to the car, stopping by a petrol pump to fill in his car’s tank before they left.

[...]

The restaurant was still open when they arrived back in Dunkirk. Linda’s employees said brief “hello”s and she went to the back mumbling about putting the wine in the freezer. When she came back, they took a few of the snacks and a towel and followed on their way to the beach.

The two had ditched their shoes before stepping on the sand, seeing the sun already going down on the horizon. They were right on the golden hour, a few tourists near the water taking pictures and others just taking their walks around there.

Linda extended the towel on the sand and they sat there, eating the snacks and observing the sunset.

Around half an hour after the sun had disappeared, Linda went to grab the wine bottles. She came back a few minutes later, both the bottles already open. She passed one to Harry and sat down again, taking a gulp of her bottle.

“I never really thought my mom would die before me, you know?” She started, her eyes fixed on the horizon. She was clutching to her bottle like it was the thing that was keeping her alive.

It was sad to see her that way.

“I never really had any purpose for myself, I didn’t go to college or got myself into something I loved. I always thought I would go under the earth before everyone else in my life and that would be it. I never thought that helping someone one day would make me feel happy the way it did.”

Harry knew he wasn’t the first she had helped, she told him one time that the person who came just before him was the one that said to her that she should continue doing that, and she kept her promise.

“I never even thought that my restaurant would be a good one, that I would survive the wave hitting me in the back. I didn’t think the universe would choose me to stay alive, I didn’t have anything. But I’m here now, and I’m feeling lost because my mother just died and I couldn’t even look the rest of my family in the eye.”

She gulped again on her bottle, Harry deciding to start on his. It tasted sweet and sour at the same time, but he was used to it. He likes the taste. It wasn’t something like vodka that would go down burning his throat, but it was good enough for him to not reject it.

Linda looked at her bottle for a moment before she turned to Harry, looking him in the eye. He returned the look, taking a sip from his bottle before she seemed to conclude her thought so she could speak what she wanted to.

“I don’t know if you remember it, but he smelled like wine when he first got here, but I could say that he never drank it before. It was just his natural scent.”

Harry gave her a confused look before his mind cleared. The mysterious person with a smell that made Harry crazy. He could just nod slightly, remembering the smell of something he couldn't point out what it was before this. It was wine. One of the smells was wine and he never related the two before.

“Lemon and wine. Sour creature. He smelled like blood too. It took me two days before I could be near him and make my eyes not wet because of the smell of iron.”

He remembered her telling him how she helped an omega before him, he remembered the smell, but he also remembers turning the pillow over on the second night and seeing a small stain of blood on the cover of the pillow.

It smelled like sadness and happiness at the same time, and he remembers waking up after having nightmares of having his feet trapped somewhere that he couldn’t escape and Harry would put his nose right over that stain to make his brain concentrate in something else.

It worked like a charm for the time it lasted, but his nightmares reduced significantly by the time the pillow lost its scent.

Right when Harry started drinking a big gulp, Linda said something that made him choke on the liquid.

“He came here a few days ago.”

Harry coughed, Linda only laughing between tears.

“What?!” He asked when he finally got himself together again, looking at her wide eyed.

“He came here a few days ago.” She repeated, and Harry could feel his heart beat a little faster.

“He never– Why did he come?”

“He was just passing.” Linda said, taking a deep breath before continuing. “He said his journey is ending, that he’s going home, but I feel like it's just a new beginning he’ll go through.”

“Where… Where did he say he was going?” Harry tried, and Linda only gave him a laugh and shook her hand in a _no_ motion.

“Harry, I’m not interfering with the universe’s job. I feel like you'll have some encounters and mismatches, but you’ll meet in the end, you don’t need to worry about that, darling.”

“You say darling like an old grandma and you’re not much older than me. It’s strange.” Harry decided to focus his attention on the wine bottle in his hand, seeing it was already in the half of it before he chugged down a quite big quantity of his wine.

“Three years for me is quite a difference.”

"It ‘s not.”

“It is.”

“It ‘s not.”

They looked at each other for a moment in a staring contest and just gave their attention back to the sea, drinking their wine in sync.

“I like to think I’m wiser than you.” Linda commented.

“Being whimsical the way you are I can’t even contest it.” He retorted.

She slapped him in the arm and he laughed.

“I learned that with my mom.” Her voice tone suggested she started to almost fly in past memories in that moment and Harry imagined her doing exactly that. “She never really told me a lot of things, she would let me learn by making mistakes if I decided that I didn’t need help.”

Harry looked at her for a moment, seeing her calm expression while still clutching to the wine bottle while looking at the horizon.

“It was hard at first. I was very stubborn and wouldn’t ask her anything. We didn’t talk much when I was a teenager because of it, but I knew she was always looking out for me, even if I didn’t ask her to do it. She just… She had the same gut feeling I have now. She knew when to say things and when it was for the best that she stayed quiet. I learned everything I know by just observing her.”

Linda looked at him, giving Harry a smile before letting her eyes fall and take a sip of wine from her bottle.

Harry stopped to think, and his mind went to the things he would do on a daily basis. Take care of his family legacy, beat people up, control entire places and live in the middle of constant violence.

For some reason, he didn’t want to bring someone else into this life, and the thought of this omega he had been fancying for so many years going into all of this disturbed him. He didn’t want to keep secrets about his life to this person, it felt like they could never trust each other because of secrets.

He wondered if this omega also had secrets to keep, things he wouldn’t like Harry to know about in fear it would create an abyss between them. He knew that maybe his secrets would be worse than anyone else's, it wasn’t just about the mob he kept in silence.

Harry had tried to kill himself too many times for a lifetime in just the span of a few years, and he didn’t have the wish to talk about that with no one besides Linda, just because he knew she understood him. She had passed through a very rough time in her life just like Harry had, and he saw that as something they shared, a thing just theirs.

He wished that he wouldn’t need to keep that a secret from someone he liked, someone he wished to share a life with. But he knew how things like that broke relationships, how distrust broke hearts and separated people no matter how much they loved each other.

Gemma, his sister, had passed through very rough relationships just like Harry did when he was still trying. And Harry remembered when a beta she was dating talked with her about his thoughts. Thoughts she had heard once before, and this before was him, Harry. He remembered when she arrived by the house how much she was shaking, mumbling about not being able to endure that all over again while crying on Harry’s shoulder.

The decision that maybe hiding everything was for the best came not long after. How he would hide and do his best to not put his thoughts about death out there. He decided he would die with them, bring them to his grave and never talk about it with anyone he loved because of how disturbed he was about seeing his sister in that state.

Harry came back to earth when he felt the hand on his shoulder, realizing that maybe Linda had been calling him by the worried face she was wearing.

“What’s bothering that head of yours?” She asked, and Harry shook his head before even saying something.

"It 's nothing.” He said, and she gave him a questioning look. “It really is nothing, Linda.” He tried again, but by just looking at her face he knew she wasn’t believing him, not even a little.

“I’m not going to push you to tell me what's wrong, but I’m here if you need to talk about anything.” Linda said, and Harry was just grateful he wouldn’t need to talk about any of that right now.

Harry gave her a nod and the two finished their bottles in the next few minutes, keeping their eyes on the sea for most of the time while looking around one or two times. Their minds were blank by that point, the alcohol finally hitting them on their heads, just enough so they wouldn’t start to think about stupid things.

After finishing their drinks, they got up and left the beach behind, going back to the restaurant. According to the clock on the far wall it was around nine, too early to be drunk but today wasn’t just any day, so it didn’t matter.

There weren’t that many people inside, but it was just enough to give both of Linda’s employees enough things to fill all the time they had. Linda took both bottles and went to put it on the back, Harry cleaning his feet before stepping inside and sitting by the vacant chair by the door.

He certainly had a thing about that spot.

Harry stayed quiet there, just looking around. He was glad he wasn’t the obnoxious type of drunk but the quiet type instead. He wasn’t bothering anyone about anything, just being there on his chair.

At some point he laid his head down on the table, seeing Linda come back and sit on the chair in front of him. She had a few papers in hand, and Harry didn’t doubt it was something bank related.

He was quite impressed about how she could still do work after drinking an entire bottle of wine after a shitty day, but he had seen her work after downing an entire bottle of whiskey once so that wasn’t that impressive, but it still was in some way.

Harry started his nap not long after that, tired of being driving and thinking that he would need to drive back to England at some point.

It was around eleven when Linda woke him up after closing the restaurant, guiding him to lay down on the couch of her apartment upstairs. He was out like a light the moment his body touched the fabric of the sofa, not awake anymore to even realize he was too big for the furniture or see Linda pulling the table she had on a corner to put under his dangling feet so he had another support.

Linda just threw a light cover over him, putting a soft pillow under his head before she went to her bedroom.

[...]

The phone on his back pocket ringed, making Harry put down the cup he was holding to grab the electronic. He saw Taylor’s number shining on the screen and clicked on the green button before bringing it to his ear.

“Good morning, Taylor.”

“It’s afternoon already.” She said back, chuckling. “I sent the ticket for your train back to your email.”

“Thank you. Anything interesting happened there? I’m up to gossip.” He grabbed his cup with his free hand, taking a sip of the warm tea.

“Well, if you count having the new neighbours arriving, that’s the gossip I would have for you.”

“Have you met them yet?”

“No, not yet.” She sighed, appearing like she was doing something else while talking to him. “They are quiet at the least. Zayn said he saw when they came. It was almost midnight, two days ago. Niall saw them leaving the house just an hour after you left in the morning and according to him they came back right by the end of the afternoon.”

“I hope they are quiet, at least by dawn. I don’t want to mess up my sleep schedule again.”

“It is already messed up.” Taylor laughed, Harry hearing the creaking of her chair in the background. “Well, hopefully they won’t mess it up even more.”

Harry made an agreeing noise with his throat, taking the last bite of his croissant and drinking the rest of his tea. He could hear Taylor muthering on the other side of the line but he decided to not say anything.

“I’ll be going, see you in a few hours.” Harry said, getting up from the chair he was in.

“See you.” She answered just before Harry ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket.

He walked to the counter with his tab, pulling his wallet and giving the cashier the paper and the money. He put the change in his wallet and got out of the restaurant, seeing Linda sitting by the hood of his car under the sun. It was already cold because of autumn, so the sun was more of a warming thing than bothering like it would be in summer.

“Already going?” She asked, uncrossing her arms while she got up.

“I need to, I have an empire to take care of.” He said, a little on the joking side.

They hugged for a few seconds when Harry stopped in front of her, looking each other in the eye after.

“Have a safe trip back. And thanks for… yesterday.” She said, giving Harry a smile.

“We’re friends, Linda, you don't need to thank me.” He gave her a smile back. “Take care of yourself, ok?”

She just nodded, giving him another hug before she went back to her restaurant.

He got into the car, putting his seatbelt and driving away. He went to the highway, merging in with the other cars. Harry turned on the radio and let it be in the background.

Thoughts came and went away while he tried his best to just concentrate on his driving task.

The recurrent one was about how his love life was ficou up and he seemed to have a liking for people who fucked him over. It was a sad thought to have, but it was just the reality of his life.

But as soon as they came, they were already gone. It took him less than two hours to get his car into the train and arrive in english lands again. And two more hours later he finally arrived back in London. He was so used to the commute that he didn’t realize that the sun was already showing it’s beautiful pink colors on the sky mixed with orange, purple and blue.

He stopped by Soho just to get something to eat and go to a shop to get something Taylor had ordered and went on his way back to his house.

It only took him thirty minutes by the slight over the limit speed for him to stop his car in the garage and get his things before going inside.

He was still in automatic when Niall called up his attention, making him see and realize that he was home already, sitting by the kitchen counter while eating a piece of strawberry cake with some tea on the side.

“Hm?”

"How 's Linda?” Niall asked again, Harry leaving the fork he was holding on the edge of the plate.

"She 's ok. We… We drank wine by the beach yesterday.” Harry said, rubbing his hands on his pants. 

Niall hummed, getting a cup of cold water from the fridge for himself before he stopped in front of Harry on the other side of the counter.

“I have some paper for you to overlook later, about the new nightclub.” Niall started, looking at the glass in his hands before getting his head up again. “I’m just waiting for Karlie to arrive so she can take a look on the menu and the DJs that will be playing at the inauguration.”

Harry nodded, grabbing the fork and looking at his cake. He should eat, he hadn’t been eating very well for some time again and he didn’t want to worry any of his… friends, packmates, business partners… He shook his head, not really wanting the sweet anymore.

“When she arrives, ask her to look for Bradley. He wanted to talk with her and he said it to me a few days ago but I forgot to tell anyone that was talking with Kloss.” He commented, getting up from his chair after pushing the plate with the cake more to the middle of the counter to secure it wouldn’t fall.

He went to the other side of the counter, going to the fridge and opening the door. Just a look inside and he could tell he wasn’t hungry anymore. Nothing pulled his attention, which didn’t really bother him but he knew how it bothered Taylor and Liam.

Harry closed the fridge door, sighing.

“I can order you something if you want.” Niall said, his eyes on Harry’s figure. The other returned the look before shaking his head.

“There’s no need to, I’ll just–”

Harry was cut off by the front doorbell ringing.

The two looked at each other before moving slowly to the door to the foyer. Taylor was coming down the stairs fast while looking at them with one of her eyebrows arched. Harry could see Liam and Zayn coming down too, but with much more caution.

“Did you order something?” Taylor asked not too loud, the bell ringing again.

Harry and Niall just shook their heads, so Taylor got the gun that was by the front door and took a deep breath before opening a small crack of the door to take a peak on who was outside.

A girl was outside, black turtleneck and long sleeves covering her upper body while she was in some floral pants that Harry from a few years ago would say were strange but the him from now could just comment that she had a fashion sense.

She was holding something in her hands that seemed to be a container of some sort. Her above shoulder length hair was flowing with the breeze from outside and she had a smile on her lips.

“Hi, sorry for coming in such an hour of the day.” She said, a more awkward expression going to her face.

“How can I help you?” Taylor asked, trying her best to keep a smile on her own face. She had the gun hidden behind the door.

“I’m one of the new neighbours. My friends are still in the city so I decided to come here before they told me to wait till morning. I’m Olivia, nice to meet you.” She extended her hand, Taylor shaking her hand with her visible one.

“I’m Taylor, nice to meet you.” Taylor looked back for a second, Liam rapidly tucking the gun he was holding on the back of his pants before Taylor opened the door a little more so Olivia could see them there. “These are Zayn, Liam, Niall and Harry.”

“Oh, hi.” She opened a way bigger smile, waving at the others. “I just came to leave some of the cookies I made earlier, only my friend Carol and I like to eat them and I kinda exaggerated today so I decided to bring you guys some.” She extended the container she was holding forward, Harry moving to the door so he could grab it. “They are blueberry ones, and there are a few of strawberries too.”

“Thank you very much, Olivia.” Harry said, giving her a nod.

She nodded back, an awkward silence being settled for a few seconds before she decided to leave.

“I’ll… see you guys another day. I left dinner in the oven and I need to make sure it doesn’t burn.”

“It was very nice to meet you.” Taylor complemented, giving her a last smile.

Olivia just gave them all a wave before she went to get her bicycle that she left just a few meters away and rode away.

Harry was intrigued by her smell, looking her go away back through where she came. She had a hint of lemon on her, but he could say that it wasn’t hers. He just shook his head before letting Taylor close the door and put the gun away.

He looked at the cookies and shrugged, going back to the kitchen and opening the container. Everyone was looking at him, so he just got one of the blueberry cookies and gave it a bite, looking at them.

It was a very good cookie. A very good cookie from the new neighbours.

He just hoped his life wouldn't become a caos.


	3. Acknowledging the past so the future is easier

Everything was chaotic.

Louis couldn’t look at any corner of the house and not see the chaos that everything was. 

There were boxes everywhere, and for much he was glad the moving company had indeed put the boxes in their proper rooms or at least tried their best, the house already had a few pieces of furniture here and there.

The historical type of furniture, ones you can’t just buy somewhere.

He sighed, looking at the boxes on the corner of the kitchen. He had just woken up and wanted his tea, a very hot tea before he decided that he would take iced for the rest of the day like he would always do.

It took him fifteen minutes to find his kettle and stop overlooking the other things on the other boxes. He wished he had time to just put everything in place but they had to leave in less than two hours so Diana could do her rundown of the city and find the things she had on her list.

Louis got the electric kettle on the plug on the wall after pouring the water on it, going on his search for the tea bags. By the time he sat down with his cup in hands, Carol entered the kitchen to do her coffee.

He went back to his bedroom upstairs just to get his phone and came back to the kitchen, Cherry already sitting in another chair by the center table, focused on the book she was holding.

Carol was just looking outside the back door, Louis seeing the grass that extended there before he went back to his tea.

“Good morning!,” Olivia entered the room almost cheering, going for the kettle with Louis’ hot water. She was way too happy for everyone’s taste, and you could clearly see everyone’s frown, including Diana’s, who came right after the girl.

“There’s nothing good about sleeping without my pillow,” Carol said, pouring herself a cup of coffee before she sat at the table.

“You’re the one who didn’t want to search for it,” Cherry said, grabbing the mug Carol was holding, ignoring the look the other gave her back.

“I was tired,” Carol said while she got up to get herself another mug. She had to wait for Diana to get her own first since she was holding the coffee pot.

Olivia left her cup on the table, going on a search through a few of the boxes, pulling out a few of the pots and pans and leaving it through the counter. She would take a sip of her tea here and there, the other observing her working in silence. Louis unlocked his phone to look through the news.

“Can we get wi-fi for this house? It would be very good to not worry about the internet plan I have on my phone,” Carol commented, already sitting at the table with her mug in between her hands.

“Maybe we can ask the neighbours if they have internet there so we can get the same provider they use,” Olivia said, stopping for a moment to look down at the box in front of her. She had her hands on her hips and didn’t look very pleased.

“Maybe in a few days after we finish unpacking everything,” Diana chimed in, using the wall to hold herself upright. “And after we get everything in its place,” she said, looking directly at Olivia, who just ignored her fiancée’s eyes.

“We need to go to a supermarket, buy food,” Cherry put her book down, using what seemed to be a clothing tag to mark where she stopped. She finished her coffee, getting up to put the mug on the sink.

Carol gave the girl her own mug when she turned around again, and Cherry only gave her wife a little smile before also putting the mug away and propping herself in the back of Carol’s chair, leaving her hands on the other’s shoulders.

“Do you need me to make a list of things to buy?,” Louis asked after finishing his own tea, only leaving the cup on the table.

“I think it will be easier to just go through the aisles and decide the things we’ll bring. Unless someone wants to do a list,” Cherry stated, changing the foot she was balancing herself on.

“I’ll make a small one, I want to cook a few things for the next few days,” Olivia said, closing the box in front of her and getting her cup on the table to finish her tea.

“Ok then, we’ll leave in twenty minutes max,” Diana said, leaving her mug on the sink before getting out of the kitchen. Louis could hear her getting up the stairs.

“I’ll go get changed, pijamas don’t seem to be the latest fashion trend for day to day wear.” Olivia left her mug on the sink, running after Diana like a puppy.

Louis would laugh if he hadn’t heard Diana and Cherry calling Olivia puppy too many times for a lifetime already.

Cherry only gave Carol a look before the two went to their bedroom, Louis sighing. He took a few minutes in the silence, looking outside the back door before he got up to close it and go change.

[...]

“They aren’t that cheap because it's out of season.”

“But you’ll still buy them, won’t you?”

Olivia looked at Louis like he had just said the most atrocious thing in the world, bewildered.

“Of course I will, I want my blueberry cookies.”

“And the strawberries aren’t on season either, but I know you will buy them anyways,” Louis said, letting out a laugh when he saw Olivia pouting.

“You said I could.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t get them now, Ollie,” Louis put his right hand on her shoulder, holding the bag of apples on the other. “I’m just saying that next time it will be better if we get them in season.”

She only gave him a nod, letting a small smile on her lips and went to get her strawberries after leaving the sack of blueberries on the shopping trolley. Louis just sighed, leaving the apples on the trolley and went to get the limes he saw when he entered the place.

Ten minutes later he saw Cherry coming back from where she was in the store, pushing a trolley with quite a lot of cleaning supplies in it. She left the car near Louis and went to grab something nearby, coming back with a bag of chocolate chips. She just gave him a smile while putting it on the basket and pushing her trolley away again.

It probably took them around two hours to finish grabbing everything they wanted, and three trolleys. Louis, Olivia and Cherry each passed one, not really paying that much attention to the total and just giving the cashier their cards. They could see some people looking but it wasn’t like they cared. They had just moved to their new house and it was exactly what Louis said to the cashier when she asked.

They loaded most of the bags in Olivia’s jeep and put the rest on Louis’s car, lowering both of their backseats to fit everything just right. There was no sign from Carol’s red jeep but they knew where she and Diana were at least.

It was the afternoon already, so the three just went on through the city before Olivia stopped at a fabric shop and Louis went on to look at the rest of the legal papers with the real estate agent.

It was just an estate transfer to Louis’ name that took less than an hour, but not an hour enough for Olivia to leave the other shop just yet.

He stopped his car right where he found a spot and went inside the place, looking at a quite bored Cherry just looking a few things through her phone while Olivia was giving rolls and more rolls of fabric to the lady that worked there to cut.

One more hour and they finally left the place with three more bags to put on Louis’ car, Cherry already calling Carol to see where the other two were.

They met back on their way to the house, arriving right on the end of the afternoon. It hadn’t taken that long like the day before, just a little over half an hour, and now Louis was thinking that maybe the real estate agent just didn’t like to drive that fast.

It took them quite some time to unload everything and put all the food and the other things in their places, but right by the time they were already finishing Olivia was half way done with their dinner.

[...]

Louis finished taking all of his clothing from the boxes, refolding them and putting them in his wardrobe. It was midnight when he looked at the time on his phone.

He took a short pause before he continued, going by his window and looking outside. It was dark, of course, but he could see a few lights in the distance. Their neighbours didn’t seem to be much of the party type, or at least it was something he hoped from the bottom of his heart.

He remembered some of the neighbours he had through the years with his constant moving and renting.

The obnoxious were the ones he wanted to forget the most, maily that guy who beat his girlfriend. Louis called the police three times on the guy and none of them gave results, so when he appeared with purple bruises and a broken arm, Louis just said nothing when the police came to investigate the report the guy tried to do.

The most glorious day was probably when a girlfriend kicked her now ex by pushing him to the sidewalk and threw all of his clothes in the garbage bin that was just being collected by the city. Yeah, that definitely beated all the stories he could have.

But now, they kinda lived in the middle of nowhere. And that was a very good thing in Louis’ eyes. Being in the city for too long gave him constant headaches.

The problem now was that he lived for so long just doing job after job that he didn’t know what to do if he wasn’t killing anyone for money. He didn’t see any prospects of the future in his life, he couldn’t see himself in the future like other people did. He could clearly see the present and the past, but the future was a problem.

He decided to push his thoughts away, focusing on the distant light again. Louis didn’t want to think about things he couldn’t imagine. He saw one of the lights turning off, leaving just a few of the windows illuminated.

For some reason, he wanted to just go there and say hi to the neighbours, but he wasn’t going to do that. He felt a pull to the other house, but he was definitely not going to act on that. The last time he did that he couldn’t remember what he did for two days before coming again and realizing he was just three hours away from Dunkirk according to his GPS.

That day he could say that it was probably the fastest he had ever driven when he turned around and went back to where he could see Olivia’s location.

He promised himself to not act on his pulls he had from time to time when he saw how distressed Ollie, Di, Cher and Carol were when he finally came back.

Louis turned away from the window, leaning on the sill to take a look around his bedroom. There were just two boxes there that haven't been opened, and one of them was going down to the library. The other just had photo albums, and he was still deciding if he was going to put them in the library or not.

His bed was made, his clothes were in their places. He had put a picture of him, Cherry and Olivia from a few months ago right beside his laptop on the desk he had there, but he was missing a chair. He took his phone from his back pocket, opening a note and writing down “office chair” before hitting enter and thinking what else he needed.

It was half an hour of thinking and putting things on his list before he finally headed to bed.

But he didn’t sleep much. It was around five in the morning when he woke up again, and looking at the clock and seeing the time only made him groan. He was ready to start his self-deprecating moment when he heard in the distance the front door closing.

He got up from his bed, doing his best to be in silence while he went down the corridor and stopped on the top of the stairs.

Diana was sitting with her back on the door, untying her shoes in the most sleep deprived way someone could do. He went down the stairs, but she only realized he was there when he stopped in front of her. She just looked up and sighed, closing her eyes and letting her head fall down.

He just sat by her side, not really sure if they should have a conversation or the silence could just be there and they would be more than ok with that. But Diana decided to break it, and that was ok.

“Is Olivia sleeping?,” she asked, keeping her eyes on her lap.

“The door was closed, so I think so,” he said, looking at her. She seemed tired, she was just there, slumped against the door. “Did something happen?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the gate to install the cameras Carol wanted.” She got her head up, taking a deep breath.

Louis stayed in silence, sensing she would talk more, and she indeed continued.

“I think I’m not used to being in a physical place I can call home,” Diana started again. “Me, my parents and my sister were used to just moving a lot because of my mom being the right hand of the Berlin mob. My father and my sister never really cared about it but I always felt out of place because of it.”

He moved himself to be a little nearer her, passing his right arm over her shoulder, scooping her.

“And then I went to the army, moving even more because of it. And when I left and met you, Carol, Cher… and Ollie… she made me feel like I finally found home. But we were still moving around and I just wanted to settle somewhere, stop moving every few weeks.”

She leaned on the other, taking another deep breath.

“Now, we moved into a house that we’ll probably live in for more time than I ever stayed somewhere and my brain is not… computing it, I think.”

“It’s ok to feel like that, Diana,” Louis said, squeezing her a little and leaning his head on top of hers. “It’s just a matter of time before you feel like this is the new normal. Me and the girls will be here for you all the way.”

Diana just nodded slightly, staying there quiet. Louis could point out the exact moment when she ended up falling asleep, but he decided to just not move. She was tired and he couldn’t sleep, it was just the perfect combination.

It was around six in the morning when Carol came down the stairs and saw the two of them there. Louis only made a sign for her to be in silence and she went to the kitchen. More ten minutes passed before she came carrying two cups with her. He could smell the tea from a distance.

He got one of the cups with his free hand, taking a sip while he observed Carol sitting near them by the adjacent wall.

They stayed there for half an hour before Olivia and Cherry appeared by the top of the stairs. Louis’ shoulder that was being used as a pillow had been numb for more than an hour by that point but he didn’t really mind about that.

The two went to the kitchen and the smell of fresh tea came to Louis’ nose again when they started to head back to where the other three were seated.

“Did you sleep much?,” Olivia asked Louis, exchanging his cup with another and just leaving the empty one near her by the floor when she sat down in front of them.

“Around five hours,” he sputtered, sighing right after. “I couldn’t sleep more and then I heard Diana closing the front door.”

She just nodded and drank her tea.

Around seven Diana finally woke up, very slowly. She blinked a few times before opening her eyes for sure and looking around. She got her head up, rubbing her fingers in her eyes. Louis stretched his arm, feeling the blood flow a little more easy to his arm.

Olivia just made a sign to her fiancée, helping her to get up from the floor and guiding her to the living room. The others got up from the floor, staying by the door observing Olivia lay down on the sofa and Diana just let herself fall on top of the other and go to sleep again after finding a comfortable position.

[...]

They stayed by the house in the morning, leaving to go to the centre after lunch. Olivia stayed behind, saying she was going to use her time to bake.

The kitchen was quite organized considering she was baking a tray after the other. She received an alert on her phone about movement in the cameras by the gate, taking a look at the car passing and entering through the neighbours gate. A few minutes later another alert came and she saw another two cars arriving.

She decided to go over, not really knowing what time Lou and the girls were coming home. She indeed left dinner on the oven, but it was already ready by that point.

The other house had a strong scent of clove engraved in it, and for much she wasn’t a fan, she could also smell the gunpowder. The smell hit her full force when the door opened after she rang the bell, twice.

She didn’t say anything about anything really and just tried her best to act normal and not like her senses were being dialled to eleven by that gunpowder smell coming from behind the door.

When she arrived back home, she sent a message to Diana about smelling gunpowder on the neighbours and to not tell the others anything. She went upstairs to take a shower, knowing quite well that it was possible that the smell of that house stuck a little with her.

Another hour passed before they arrived and Olivia was in the library cataloging the books they had there so she could organize everything.

“Did you really smell that?,” Diana asked, hugging her fincée from behind while she was hovering over some boxes to count how many books there were in them.

The girl just nodded, writing down a number on the paper she was holding. She heard the sigh behind her but Diana didn’t make any move to let her go.

“I took a shower, before you ask,” Olivia said, looking a little to the side to see Diana’s face buried in her shoulder.

“I’ll organize the armory in a few days,” Diana mumbled, her voice muffled. “Just in case.”

Olivia only gave her a nod before bringing one of her hands up to Diana’s head.

[...]

He was sure he had fallen asleep on his bed. There was no way he put himself inside his wardrobe in the beginning of the night.

Louis was really trying to convince himself of that while sitting inside the furniture, the door already open by his side.

There were other times that he did that without thinking much, but he would always put himself into small spaces wanting to, not waking up to the surprise he did it without having memory of it.

He could see his, before organized, clothes on the floor, but he couldn't remember throwing anything on the floor, not even waking up in the middle of the night to do that.

He took a shaky deep breath, staying in the same position for a few more minutes before he got out, doing his best not to step on any of his clothes. He followed his way to the bathroom, taking a bath before coming back to the room so he could put his clothes back in the wardrobe.

By the time Olivia found him, he was sitting near the door of his bedroom trying to decide what he was going to do. He was trying to decide if he was going to start locking his bedroom door just to make sure he wouldn’t bother any of the girls by accident.

“Did something happen?,” she asked, bringing him back to earth.

“I woke up in the wardrobe,” he said, and she just gave him an arched eyebrow back. “I don’t remember waking up and getting myself inside it.”

Then she gave him an understanding look, sitting by his side on the floor and hugging him sideways. He just let himself be under her arm, taking a deep breath while feeling the warm feeling passing through his entire body.

“Put your bed near the wall,” she said after a few minutes, and Louis had to get his head up to give her his confused look. “You can sleep near the wall, like you used to do before you got yourself into this mess of sleeping in small places.”

“I shouldn’t do that, the house it pretty the way it is and–”

“If you turn to me and say that you don’t want to move your bed to the edge of your room because it is not _aesthetically pleasing_ , I’ll beat your ass,” she cut him off, giving him a pointed look. “This house is ours, no one is going to come here to judge the placement of your bed, and if they do I’ll tear them apart with my teeth.”

He could only give her a smile before he chuckled by the eyebrow wiggle she was giving him.

[...]

It had been two weeks since they first arrived there. Two weeks in a new place for the girls and a distant memory for Louis.

They decided on going for a date night while Louis stayed behind, drinking his wine and listening to some calm songs while he worked on organizing the library for Olivia. She had organized the entire catalogue, but going to the centre almost everyday didn’t give her much time to really put everything in place on the physical sense of the thing.

So it was quite a surprise for him when he heard the doorbell ring.

He looked into the foyer before properly going to the door and stopping a meter away, looking at it for a few seconds before he went over and pulled it open.

There was a short haired blonde on the other side, and by the scent he could get it was an omega. But in his line of life he knew how that was the least important thing if you really did a good job. And Louis could smell the gunpowder in the mix of his natural jasmine scent.

“How can I help you today?,” Louis asked, plastering his best smile while still holding his wine glass on his left hand.

“I just came to give this back,” the blonde said, raising his hand that's holding something familiar. It was one of Olivia’s containers, one that was part of the small collection he gave her a few years back.

A fancy glass one that he knew she would never give away unless it was something important.

“I thought you guys would want it back, we kinda forgot about it after she went over to give us cookies two weeks ago,” he continued, and Louis got the container and made a small head sign for him to wait a moment.

Louis went over to the kitchen, leaving the container there and grabbing another glass by the cupboard before he came back to the door.

“Are you doing anything now, stranger?,” Louis asked, offering the empty glass to the blonde.

“No, not really.” The other grabbed the glass, going inside before Louis closed the door and went on his way back to the library. “I’m Niall, Niall Horan.”

“Louis,” he looked back for a second, looking at the blonde with a small smile.

He grabbed the bottle that was by the side table there, going to the blonde and filling his glass a little before giving him another smile, going to put the bottle back on the table.

“I assume you’re one of the neighbours,” Louis said, putting his glass down just so he could take another box and put on the chair near one of the book shelves. He got his glass back, taking a sip before he opened the box to survey which one that was.

“Oh, yeah,” Niall said, taking a stroll around the room while observing. “I am indeed.”

Most of the boxes were already empty, and by looking at the clock, Louis could for sure say that the girls would probably get themselves a hotel for the night, or had already gotten.

“Any special reasons on why you decided to come over at one in the morning?,” Louis asked, looking at Niall for a moment before he turned to the box in front of him again and started to put the books in their places.

“My alphas are traveling and I saw your friend's container on the counter in our kitchen,” Niall started, getting nearer to where Louis was.

The room was quite big considering how many boxes he had already emptied, but there was a part of the place that was just for Olivia’s painting, which she hadn’t started yet.

He needed to remember to ask her about that.

“I was going to come by the morning but I saw the light coming from here.”

Louis only gave him a nod, looking intensely at the book he was holding. It was the one he was looking for earlier, his russian edition of Moby Dick. He looked around for a second, localizing where his russian books were and going there to put it in place before he came back to his box.

“We thought you guys would be the party type, or the problem one,” Niall said, looking through the spines of the books near Louis. “It ended up not being any of them since you seem to have a habit of going to the centre almost everyday.”

“We’re still adapting to the city. The girls never came to this side of Europe before and they have a habit of exploring whenever we move to a new place,” Louis commented, putting the rest of the books from that box in their places before going to get a new one.

“So have you come here before?”

“I’m from England, just not from London.” He opened the new box, taking another sip of his wine before pulling out the first book. “I came here when I was very young with my mom, and the second one I just passed through the city before I went east, but I didn’t stay for more than a few hours.”

Niall only hummed, so Louis focused for a few minutes in his book organizing task before Niall decided to ask something.

“Are you staying in the city?,” he questioned, making Louis stop on his tracks to look at the blonde with a questioning look. “You said whenever you move to a new place you guys go on exploring it. What if you finish exploring? Are you moving again?”

“I… I’m not sure for now, but we bought this house. And we still have a few things to solve east, but we’ll probably be staying,” he decided on his answer, remembering that Olivia and Diana still wanted to marry, but Olivia was holding herself back because of her family.

Louis knew how her relationship with her family was damaged after she ran away all those years ago and only continued to contact her aunt Gabriela. He would need to talk with her about that too, but that talk could wait a few more weeks before he decided to bring that up.

They would probably need to do a physical visitation to solve everything.

“I have a few things to put in place back in my home town too but I need to wait.”

“Wait for what?,” Niall shot back almost instantly, and that whole questionnaire was looking like Niall was trying to pull everything he could from Louis before the latter just threw the blonde to the darkness that was outside.

“Just waiting,” Louis said, giving him a small smile that truly said he wasn’t going to give him the reasons. “You said your alphas were travelling, why did you stay behind?”

And Niall now looked like a deer in the headlights. Louis could almost hear Olivia and Cherry laughing in the background.

“It's just business, they don't like involving me in that part of the things.”

“And what do you do for a living?,” Louis asked, putting the empty box on the pile, seeing that only the boxes with the photo albums needed to be emptied by that point.

“I’m an accountant for them. I look over the numbers they don’t like to look at and have their bank cards in my pocket.” Niall had a smug smile, and Louis snickered. “And what do you do?”

“I was an accountant for someone once, before we moved. My boss died three years ago and I just stayed working for one of his sons for a few months before the guy decided to fire me.”

Louis decided to go with that line of story. He wasn’t keen to spill all of his truths in the moment, and he technically was not lying.

Omitting isn't lying.

“He lost all of his money in a stupid investiment just two months after he let me go. It was fun to laugh at him at the time.”

Louis grabbed the wine bottle, putting more on his glass before offering to Niall. The other just got near him, letting Louis put more wine on his glass.

“I can’t even doubt how fun it must have been,” Niall arched one of his eyebrows. “But after that, you just started living off of your savings?”

“Diana and Carol work as contractors. I help them here and there with the financial part when they want me to.”

“And they just… Do they pay you for that?”

“Ah, no, not really. We are a pack, we’re family. We have all been living together for almost ten years by this point, each of us got our own things going and we just get what we want by this point. Money is not one of our problems and I’m always looking over everything to make sure of it.”

Niall only nodded, sipping on his wine while sitting in one of the armchairs that were nearby.

“The guy must have paid you well while you worked for him for you to not care about money,” the blonde commented, and Louis got himself in the other armchair there, deciding to put the photo albums in their places when he was a little more sober than how he was now.

“He did. He had a fortune, going on billions. When he died, he actually left me three percent of his money before dividing the rest in between his children. A bunch of rotten spoiled people if you ask me. He left his nurse another three percent and I could almost see the soul of the poor woman leaving her body when the lawyer told her.”

“She must have been happy because of it.”

“She was.” Louis sipped on his wine, thinking he would at least finish that glass before he went to his bed. “She told me she was going to pay the rest of the debt she had and finish the payments on the place she had bought.”

“And Olivia? Does she work?,” Niall inquired, drinking his own wine.

“She’s a painter. She likes to paint portraits, and with Diana working she doesn’t mind not having a stable job. Diana also doesn’t say anything so they have a silent agreement about that.”

The blonde only nodded, understanding.

“There’s… There’s another girl, doesn’t it? I’ve seen you guys leaving last week, once.”

“Yep. Diana, Olivia, Carolina, and the missing one in your list is Cherry. She and Carol have been married for a year now,” Louis said, looking around for a moment before focusing on Niall again. “She doesn’t work, before you ask me.”

Niall only gave him a chuckle back, Louis leaving a smile by his lips.

“I think I should be going…,” Niall sighed, looking at the watch on his wrist. “Taylor will probably come after me if she realizes I sneaked out.”

Louis laughed, getting up from his chair with Niall, putting both of their glasses on the nearby table where the wine bottle was resting on.

They went to the front door, Louis opening it and looking at Niall quite expectantly.

“Thank Olivia for the cookies for me. They were quite good,” the blond said, looking at Louis while he walked backwards to the outside.

“I will, don’t worry. Thanks for giving the container back, also.”

Niall only gave him a final nod, turning around and walking away. Louis stayed there by the door looking at the other, only closing and locking the door when he couldn’t see the blonde anymore.

He went back to the library, grabbing the glasses and the bottle and taking a look around before going to the kitchen to leave the bottle on the fridge and the glasses by the sink.

Louis turned off all the lights from the first floor, going up the stairs to his bedroom. He turned off the corridor lights before entering his bedroom and closing the door behind himself and locking it.

He decided on the locking solution even after pulling his bed to the edge of his bedroom, not really open for risks. He didn’t want the girls to find him anywhere else in the house by one of the mornings.

Louis only sighed, turning off the light from his bedroom and taking a look outside, seeing some lights on from the other house. He shook his head before throwing himself on his bed, getting his body near the wall before pulling his blankets to cover him.

[...]

“You went to the neighbours,” Louis said, looking at Olivia.

She gave him a blank stare before her eyes bulged. She opened her mouth to speak but Louis was faster.

“I smelled the gunpowder, and I talked with Diana already,” he continued, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Olivia just sighed, adjusting herself on the chair she was sitting by the kitchen table. She looked at the tea cup between her hands, the one she was letting the tea get colder before she tried to drink.

“I won’t tell Carol, nor Cherry about it.” Louis got his mug from the counter behind him, pulling the chair in front of Olivia and sitting in it. “I’m not telling them because of Carolina, but you know that they will find out eventually.”

“I know, I just didn’t think that we would have so much luck that the house we choose to live in was right beside people who handle guns on a day to day basis,” she said in a sarcastic tone and sighed again, getting her cup up and blowing some air into the liquid before she took a small sip.

They stayed in that comfortable silence for a few seconds before Olivia continued.

“I don’t know what they do for a living and I don’t care. If they bring problems to our side, I’ll snap someone’s neck.”

“I don’t even doubt that,” Louis said cheeky, Olivia looking at him with her eyes squinted. They both laughed that off, going back to their drinks.

It was the second cup of coffee that Louis was drinking and he knew that he would live off decaf tea for the next few days if he decided to pour himself another mug.

“I just feel like we shouldn’t take any precipitated actions and maybe let things roll like they should,” Louis started, but already not even knowing what he was talking about. His mind was foggy for a second before he continued. “I don’t want to move from here, nor use that arsenal that Diana insisted on us bringing to this place. I just feel that we should prepare ourselves for the impact.”

“What impact?,” Olivia asked, her brows furrowed.

“I… I don’t know. I have this feeling that something is about to happen, but it never does. I think maybe it's affecting my sleep, but I can’t even confirm that,” he sighed, looking down at his mug.

It was half empty already.

“I trust your gut, if it makes you feel better,” Olivia stated, sipping on her tea. Big sips.

Louis only showed her his look of exhaustion, and she laughed.

“Look, it’s hard, all of our minds are going back and forth on this whole leaving our past behind, trying our best to pretend like we didn’t put people up in trees less than three months ago. It’s adaptive, we need to look forward even when our past is knocking on the door that’s following us. And sometimes we will answer the door, let the visitors come in and just pray that the upside-down broom behind our doors will be enough to send them away.”

“Your family superstitions are rubbing on you again,” he commented with a grin, and she looked at him offended like he ignored everything she just said.

He didn't ignore any of her words, but he wasn’t going to admit that.

“I’ll break your neck before I break the neighbours if you keep doing that,” she threatened him, pointing a finger at him.

He got up from his chair for a second, using the table as leverage, and tried to bite her finger, but she retracted before he could. She was trying her best to hide her laugh behind her cup of tea while shaking her head.

Louis sat back on his chair, finishing his coffee and putting the mug down, looking at it while pursing his lips. He wasn’t going to get more coffee, nope.

“I’m bored,” he said, laying his head on the table after shoving his mug away. “When will you start painting again?”

“I’m in search of inspiration,” she replied, drinking more of her own tea before putting the cup down, not really wanting to drink it anymore, but knowing she was going to at least do her best to finish that cup.

“Have you looked into all of those albums we have?,” Louis questioned, looking at her sideways.

“Not yet, I think I’ll wait until Cherry finishes her whole tourist tour. Me and Diana finished seeing what we wanted to see yesterday.”

“Charline.”

“Hm?,” she gave him a confused look.

“Her name is Charline. But if we call her that she’ll kill us.” He explained, getting his head up again. It was hurting his neck already.

“Her father used to call her by her birth name. Then he died and left her and her mother alone. I would also like to forget the memories of people who decided that doing shit was better than putting their families first. And I can even say that I’m saying out of experience,” she said, trying to comedy her way out of that but not doing the best job.

“It wasn’t like you were thinking when you ran away, Olivia,” Louis sighed, getting up from his chair and going to the other side of the table, sitting on the chair right besides her. He pulled her into an one arm hug, letting her head on his shoulder. “And now we have our little family here. And here we put our family first.”

“It’s just… I know they wouldn't shame me or something, but I felt so sad at the time,” she tried, already ready to just bury everything under the earth. “They’re all alphas, from my father’s side of the family. All of my cousins are alphas. And then the day I presented as omega my mind just shattered. I was so sure I would be an alpha that my expectations were gone with the wind in a matter of minutes.”

Louis brought his free hand up, holding her by the back of her head.

“Sometimes things don’t go as planned, and it’s ok,” he mumbled. “It’s hard for us to think that there’s an _after_ after everything goes to shit, but there’s always something going forward.”

She just nodded slightly, bringing her hands up to her chest and crossing her arms, getting herself comfortable there.

“Will you go with me and Cherry to go through all of those albums?,” she asked, whispering like it was a secret he had to keep.

Louis nodded, cracking a smile to her. Her eyes were on him while he nodded and she lowered her vision after, keeping a smile of her own on her face.

[...]

Louis did find something to do. And it was strange to even think that’s how he was filling his time, but at least he wasn’t bored anymore.

He had been thinking about joining Cherry and going to university too, but it still would take more than six months before it happened and he really didn’t know what to do. He thought about getting into finance or economics but he wasn’t that much sure about those.

He had the field experience of handling money. Louis didn’t lie when he told Niall about working for a rich guy once nor about inheriting three percent of his money, but at the time he was already doing _jobs_ with the girls, putting people’s bodies up on trees, like Olivia liked to joke.

None of them could really point out when the work started. It was just something that happened, and Louis had a slight suspicion that maybe it was something involving Olivia but he was never going to confirm that.

He remembered about days that he forgot things he was doing. His memory at the beginning was clouded with a dark fog, those types where you can’t even see more than a few meters ahead. And after some time things became more clear.

He had a stable job on the side and was doing a dangerous activity on the side. It was more for the adrenaline in the beginning for him. He wanted to know the drill about gaining money after ending someone else’s life. Then it just became routine, not boring at least.

So if you looked into his past and saw how many horrible things he did, and in some way still wanted to do to have his mother and sisters back, you would really need to rub your eyes to make sure you are seeing what you are seeing.

Cross stitching.

Louis was cross stitching.

Diana did really rub her eyes when she saw him setting up his things by the library window besides Olivia’s painting things. She even poked him on the arm before speed walking out of the library to bring Carol, who only gave him a strange look before going back to her own thing.

Olivia and Cherry sat besides him for a few minutes before they scurried away to do other more important things. Or at least he thought before he heard the clicking of a camera by the door.

He only gave the two a reprimand look before they went away with the equipment, pretending they didn’t do or saw anything happening.

Louis was doing his best to remember what the old lady that taught him how to cross stitch teached him during those thirteen classes they had in between everything he was doing on his day to day. It started a few weeks after his old boss died and stopped because his new one was dumping way too many things on his shoulders.

It was something he quite enjoyed, if he could be sincere. It wasn’t something he maintained during the years, but it was something he remembered, good memories at last.

He was really trying his best to follow the diagram he set up on his iPad, counting and recounting how many crosses he needed to do to make it right. He got it wrong here and there sometimes but he was quick to undo his mistake and do it right.

He finished just a few of the colors he didn’t need to use much before dinner and just got to it again after breakfast on the next day. It was a slow process, but at least he couldn’t say he was bored anymore.

Sometimes he wished to just stop and try to find something better to do with his time, but seeing he wasn’t full of options made him come back and make sure to continue where he left.

Louis wasn’t paying that much attention to the girls, but he was quite surprised to look outside the window and see Diana and Carol sitting outside of the garage with papers in front of them while discussing things left and right.

He had commented with them about how the garage felt out of place with the rest of the old house, and he wasn’t holding his hopes up when they said they would look into it with quite dismissive tones. But now seeing them at least really looking into it made him feel his heart warm.

Olivia picked up on her painting that afternoon, opening a new canvas and doing a landscape until dinner. She came back after to finish the details and left at it.

[...]

“It's the end of november and we didn’t even put up one Christmas decoration.” Olivia barged into the library, a pout on her face and arms crossed in front of her chest.

Louis struck his finger with the needle he was holding because of the sudden apparition of the girl, letting a few curse words hang in the air before he looked to his finger and just sighed when he saw that at least there wasn’t blood flowing from the place he stabbed himself.

“We didn’t even discuss anything about how we’re going to spend our Christmas, Ollie, calm down,” he replied to her, pointing at the armchair that was nearby.

She got herself to the chair, still pouting and with her arms crossed. Olivia looked like a child that just received the news that they’re not going to receive the present they wanted from Santa.

“Do you want to decorate the entire place even if we decide to go away to celebrate elsewhere?,” Louis asked, looking at her very seriously. He held both of his hands together on top of his thighs, doing his best to stay still just so she could receive the message.

Olivia just nodded, seeming to move her game from angry pouting child to embarrassed pouting child.

“Then you can plan everything today and go to the city tomorrow morning,” he said. He relaxed a bit, letting go of his posture and grabbing the needle from the top of the canvas. “Just try to not put anything inside the bedrooms, focus here on the first floor, ok?”

“Ok,” she shot back, getting up and getting out of the library.

He looked at her while she was leaving, letting out a sigh from his lips.

Olivia came back almost an hour later, pulling the chair she had in front of her easel to be more near him. She used him as a body pillow, laying on his back while she planned something on the notebook she had in her hands.

Sometimes she would stop, spin the pencil in between her fingers and start writing again after a few seconds to a few minutes. They just stayed there, not bothering about anything else.

The other girls came and went from time to time, just looking in, seeing the two and leaving to resume on their things.

A little before dinner, Olivia finally got up from his back, adjusting herself on the chair and clearing her throat. Louis stitched a last point, leaving the needle on top of the fabric.

He looked at her, and she looked like a puppy on the verge of having an anxiety attack. Louis passed his arm over her shoulder, bringing her closer while she closed the notebook she had in hands.

“I’m going to decorate just the living room and the kitchen,” she commented, and Louis nodded so she could continue. “I wanted to buy us a tree but I don’t know if I’m ready for the after Christmas commitment of chopping the wood to put on the fireplace.”

“You can buy an artificial one too if you want, it's not going to be a problem to find a place to keep it later,” he said, looking at her. She didn’t return the look but he was ok with that.

“Let’s just leave it for the next year.” She sighed, looking outside the window. There was nothing outside, no one, but it was enough to make her talk. “I… I was thinking, after you said about not being here in England for Christmas.”

“What did you think about?”

“I want to visit my parents, visit Diana’s parents, solve this whole family thing so we can get married and have the second registration instead of just having our mate one.”

Louis raised his brows for a second, rubbing his hand on her shoulder.

“But you want to visit them alone or you want us to come with you?,” Louis questioned, which made her finally look at him. She was tired, and that was visible in her face.

“I would need to at least bring you and Di so I… I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to be alone when I need to look in the eyes of my paternal family and they start snickering about me, trying to insult me by calling me names in the way I know they will do.”

“But do you want Carol and Cherry to go too? You can always ask them to stay behind if you wish to, they wouldn’t mind.”

“No, I want them there. I want to present Carol to my brothers, I think she and Javier would have a very pleasant conversation about music.” Olivia took a deep breath. “I want to present all of you to my mom. I know that the conversation will get a little warped when it comes to my dad, but I want you guys to at least be properly presented to my mom and my aunt Daniela and my uncle Samuel. You already know Gabi, so there’s that at least.

Louis could only nod, squeezing her against him one more time before he let her go.

“We’ll be there,” Lou said, and she gave him a nod back. “You don’t need to worry about anything, we’ll make it work.”

And she gave him one more nod.

[...]

Diana had left to go get a few things in the centre, so Olivia decided to call everyone so they could look through the albums that Louis left on the boxes in the library.

It was drizzling outside, it was cozy inside and they still had places in the house to organize. But they decided to take their time to go through the albums since Olivia wanted to put some photos up in the living room.

The four of them were sitting on the floor, looking through the most recent photos that Olivia had developed. Each of them were separating and putting other photos in order in the albums, leaving spaces to the photos they were putting aside just in case.

Some point down the line, Louis got his hands into an album from around five years back, and just a few seconds after opening it Louis stopped and just looked at the photo in front of him.

He remembered that day, and the other people in the picture.

Di, Ollie, Cher and Carol weren’t the only ones that were part of Louis’ _pack_ , they had three other women with them a few years back.

He remembered Olivia putting the camera by the window of the apartment they all shared and running back to where their group was sitting by and just throwing herself on top of Diana while holding her laugh and the camera counting down on the background.

The flash came, and two seconds later he had looked around and thanked whatever gods were looking up to them that he had the girls to look over his back while he could do the same.

And just a few hours later, Noelle had received the news about her mother’s death. He remembered how he tried his best to hold the woman down and how hard it was since she was an alpha and he didn’t have that much strength on him.

Louis remembered how shook all of them were and just a few hours later he entered the airplane with Noelle and her two partners so they could go and bury her mother. They were in Prague at the time, so it took them half a day just to arrive in Tânger, in Morocco.

By the time they arrived, her mother’s friends, the ones who called, were already finishing the cleansing of the body. Her mother didn’t have siblings, nor parents anymore.

An English woman in Moroquian land.

Louis was granted to see the body once before they continued the cleansing and retired to his hotel room after.

He remembered how he was allowed to be in the place where the prayer for Noelle’s mother would happen, on how he had to hold someone he didn’t realize who it was when Noelle’s father appeared to participate in the prayers.

Louis held Noelle’s partners near him, holding the two women with his arms. The silence was deafening, but it was necessary. Noelle had tears going down her face the entire time, but she rejected any help from anyone.

The next days were a blur for him, but he remembered waking up during one of the nights because of a scream, and the trip back to the Czech Republic.

He had to hold Noelle for an entire day a week after the funeral since she said she didn’t want the girls seeing her in that state, but he had a talk with her after the twenty four hour mark about how partners are there to be in all of the moments, not mattering how bad they are.

Noelle cried for one more day in the arms of her alpha and her omega, and Louis only went in the room to give them food.

Louis turned the page, seeing other pictures from a month after the other one, a sequence of around ten pictures of them walking around in the Katowice Forest Park in the city of Katowice, in Poland. He remembered the job they had done just a few hours earlier and how the girls wanted to decompress from everything and that it was Carol that chose the place.

He continued on the album, seeing many events he had forgotten, remembering things that happened before or after the pictures.

Then, he got the other albums out and started on his search, not really remembering to separate photos anymore. It took him half an hour and a few looks from Cherry, who started to pay attention to what he was doing, for him to find the right album.

Two years. It had been two years since he last saw Noelle, Jennifer and Veronica. And now he was holding the picture of them in the airport together, taken by a tourist that was going on a flight to Paris from Vienna.

The three of them had to go to Noelle’s home to solve things with her father and from there they were going to stay some time with Jennifer’s brother.

Louis remembered the call, three months later, Veronica talking to him about how things were going down to hell and they would need to stay so they could at least try to save Jennifer’s brother from their father’s hands.

Then, radio silence. He knew how sometimes Veronica would send an email here and there to Olivia. The talk about Noelle’s father catching her somewhere and not allowing Jennifer and Veronica to see the woman, Jennifer’s brother problems and Veronica’s own father making her come to live with him and his new shining wife and their rotted child who tried to stab her multiple times.

Louis did try to make contact back, but Veronica would always just send a court and simple answer in the form of a “no” or an “there’s no need, everything will solve itself.”

He must have been looking at the picture of them in the airport for too much time because when he came back to his senses, Olivia was sitting by his side with her head on his shoulder.

“I miss them,” she commented, extending her hand in Louis’ direction.

“I do too,” he answered, giving the girl the album he was holding. There were no other pictures on it, even if that one picture was right in the middle of it.

“Vero sent me a message a few months ago, about how she saw Jennifer in a market when she had to travel with her stepmother,” Olivia said, getting the picture out of the plastic and holding it between her fingers while putting the album down on the floor. “She said they didn’t talk, but they saw each other, and she said that the last thing she saw were Jennifer’s tears.”

“I have no doubt how much it must hurt, how much they don’t have memory of a lot of things because of the distance,” Louis sighed. “I’m used to not having mine, but they never had to pass through that before.”

Olivia only nodded, and Louis got his head up.

Carol and Cherry were looking at them, something that seemed to be hope in their eyes. Hope of seeing the three women together again and shining.

He knew it could be unrealistic, how rigid their families were and how hard it would be for them to just run like they did the first time around. How the guilt would eat them alive.

Jennifer was the only one who still had her mother out of the three, but her father did work enough in the dark to compensate for everything his wife didn’t do. Right hand to a bastard, just like Veronica’s dad. And then there was Noelle’s father. Left hand. His work could be compared to what Louis’ pack did, but he was worse. The man killed everyone who went against him and Louis knew about that.

“They’re still in the eye of the hurricane while we’re here going on with our lives,” Olivia said, sighing. “I want for them to be here with us, for real.”

“I do want them here too, but you know it's not that easy,” Louis looked at Olivia, and she gave the look back for a second before focusing on the picture in her hands again. “I really want them to be here, but they need to want too. I’m not here to decide things for them.”

“You could call them, see if they see a way out,” Cherry chimed in, Louis directing his attention to her. “Maybe they already found a way to get out and are waiting to see if they can still be here, with us…,” she trailed off.

Louis nodded, really thinking he should do that. It wasn’t a bad thing, trying. And hoping only hurt, but it was a pain he was already used to.

“Do they still have the same numbers?” Louis asked to the air, seeing if any of the girls would catch it.

“I only know about Veronica’s email, not sure about their numbers,” Olivia spoke, and Louis gave her a nod in acknowledgement.

“I think Jennifer still has the same number,” Carol added. “I remember calling her number by accident a year ago and I heard her voice. We only said hi to each other before she ended the call.”

“I’ll call her then. Maybe she can tell us if Vero and Noel changed numbers.” Louis got up from the floor, making Olivia get her head up from his shoulder.

He got out of the library, deciding to do everything before he forgot.

Louis went up the stairs, following all the way to his bedroom. He found his phone on his bed near his pillow, searching for Jennifer’s number and stopping when he found it.

What if she couldn’t answer right now? Maybe someone would see it and something not so good would happen.

He decided to just send a message, a simple “call me when you can”.

He pocketed his phone and went downstairs again, stopping by the library door. Ollie, Carol and Cherry were putting things in place, the airport photo and a few others from those old albums separated to the side.

Olivia looked up to him right in the moment his phone buzzed, and read the “later” response he got from, hopefully, Jennifer. He gave a brief smile to Olivia, going nearer to where they were and taking the small pile of separated pictures.

He flipped through them, picking a few of them and putting on top before passing it to Olivia.

“I’ll put them on the frames tomorrow,” Olivia said, putting them on the table near the armchairs. “I’ll go make some tea before I start dinner.”

[...]

The call came around one in the morning.

Louis was still awake by the time since he was finishing to look over some bank statements on his laptop. As the screen lit up, he looked over and saw Jennifer’s name on the screen. He took the electronic in hand, accepting the call and putting the phone by his ear.

“Hello, Jenny,” Louis said, hearing a sigh coming from the other side of the line.

“Hi, Lou,” she answered, her voice not that high but just enough so Louis could hear her.

“How have you been?,” he asked, some small rusling coming before she responded.

“Going… not so well.”

“Did something bad happen?”

“It’s always happening, it isn’t like my brother knows how to sit down and just exist without putting himself in a mess,” she replied. “He’s four years older than me, one would think he’s more responsible than me.”

“I can’t even say anything about siblings, I haven't had mines for ten years now.” 

“Eh, but have you at least created courage to call?”

“No, not yet,” he sighed, adjusting himself on the chair he was sitting on, putting one of his feet on the seat. “I’ll try to see if I can do that after new years, get everything sorted out, see if I can finally take my mom and my sisters away from the dumpster I have to call father.”

“I’m going to steal your expression to apply to my own father in my mind, thank you very much for it.” She snickered.

Louis laughed, getting up from his chair and starting to walk in circles.

“Be my guest,” he said. “But I wanted to talk with you for another reason.”

“Ask away, christmas boy,” she remarked, and Louis could almost see her smiling.

“Me and the girls moved to England recently,” he started, and she interrupted him before he could continue.

“I heard the news, I saw the news, Louis, there were pictures of it everywhere. Some people here just seem to love seeing European drama and you gave them an entire telenovela.”

“Well, since you know about that I can cut to the chase.” He sat down on his bed, crossing his legs and using his free arm as support to lean back a little. “I wanted to know how willing are you to move in with us, and bring Noel and Vero too.”

There was silence on the other side of the line before Louis heard the sigh and some rustling.

“I… Veronica’s stepmother is a prick that tried to marry her off and I’m ready to cut her head off, if you ask me.” There was more rustling sound before she continued. “I talked with her last month, you know. About leaving. She said that Noelle called her just a few hours earlier to talk about the same thing.”

“So if I gave you a space, would you move in with us willingly or would I need to force you into the basement?”

“Lou, the only thing I would need is for you to help me change the passwords of our bank accounts here, or maybe just transfer our money to another bank,” Jennifer stated, and Louis let out a laugh.

“Give me your info and I’ll have it set up tomorrow.”

“I’ll send to you by email,” and now Louis could hear the _click click_ of a keyboard. “Maybe it will take more than a week, you know, to get them. Veronica is in Tunisia while me and Noel are in Morocco.”

“You know you can ask me to do more than just help you with bank shit, right?,” Louis asked, and she sighed.

“I know, I just want to solve this myself. I shouldn’t have let it get to this point in the first place but now I’m up to making everything right.”

There was silence before Louis decided to talk.

“Me and the girls are probably going to mainland again to talk with Diana’s and Olivia’s parents,” Louis commented, trying to diverge from the discussion they would probably have.

“When?,” she asked, going full on board with it.

“I was thinking about being in Berlin by Christmas and Valencia on the sixth of January.”

“I remember Ollie commenting about opening presents in January.”

“Yeah, I was deciding for it to be like that because of it.” Louis’ eyes got up to the ceiling, his mind trying to distract him by saying to him how pretty the ceiling was. “Do you think you could get to Europe before New Years?”

“I think so, I don’t even need to fight Noelle’s father off, just Vero’s bitch of a stepmother.”

“Get somewhere in Spain before New Years and I’ll go personally to get you guys from the airport.”

“Give me the name of the place you’ll pass New Years and I’ll make sure we get as near as we can from the place so you don’t have to travel fourteen hours just to get us from somewhere in southern Spain.”

“I will.”

[...]

Midnight.

It was midnight of some day in the week when Louis came back to himself.

He found his phone on the passenger seat of his car while he was sitting behind the wheel. He grabbed the electronic and looked at the time and date, kinda relieved he lost just a day.

He took a deep breath, letting all the air go out while he leaned back on the seat.

Louis’ last memory was talking with Jenny over the phone.

A headache was formed in his head, and just the light of the screen of his cellphone was hurting his eyes. He turned the thing off, being engulfed by the darkness again.

It maybe took him just some minutes or an hour, he just got out of the car when he felt like he shouldn’t be just there, existing in the garage.

Louis entered through the door that went to the main part of the house and followed his way to the kitchen so he could grab some meds for his head before he decided it was time to lay down in bed and just melt under the covers.

Olivia was sitting at the table, a book in one hand while the other rested on a cup of, by the smell, coffee.

“Did I do something stupid?,” he asked, sitting on the other side of the table across from her. Olivia looked up from her book, adjusting herself on the chair.

“You just slept most of the day,” she said. “I woke you up once or twice to give you water. By ten you got up from the bed and went to the garage. You were going to open the garage door but I got the remote before you did, so you sat on the car and just… existed.”

Louis sighed, putting both his elbows on the table and rested his head on his hands.

“I really thought everything was ok, that it wouldn’t happen anymore, then this shit comes to attack me again,” he said, exasperatedly.

“Lou, it didn’t happen for months, it was just a question of time on how strong it would be and how much time it would last,” she closed her book, resting both of her hands on top of it. “We need to be grateful it only lasted a day and that you slept through most of it.”

“I was probably going to drive off again,” Louis remarks. “I just wanted it to stop.”

“It will stop when you settle down with someone or decide to take the meds the doctor gave you.”

“Those meds don’t work and they make me feel like even more shit than I already am.”

“Then find someone to settle down with.”

“People are shit.”

“So you will not have your problems solved so soon,” she stated, grabbing the book and opening it where she stopped last.

Louis only stayed there in silence, waiting a few minutes before he got up to grab himself a water bottle, one that he downed in one go and a second one he grabbed to sip while he sat in front of Olivia again.

The silence was a comfortable one, but not one comfortable enough to have his mind drifting away in bad thoughts. Thoughts of how broken he was and he didn’t know to do anything in life.

He was broken, he knew that form the get go. But having his own mind affirming that to him was excruciating.

“Why don’t you go up the stairs and right into your bed so you can have a proper sleep instead of having a memory loss one?,” Olivia _asked_ , and Louis directed his eyes to her figure.

“I’m not… I just need some meds to my head,” he said, using one of his hands to press on the bridge of his nose.

Olivia put the book down, getting up from her seat and going through a nearby drawer. She pulled out a box, throwing to Louis. He saw it was some pain meds, and thanked her by sending some grateful looks. He got one capsule and downed it with his water.

“Go to sleep, I’m just finishing this chapter and you’re not staying downstairs if I start to go up the stairs,” she commented, and Louis huffed before he got up. She sat down again, grabbing the book one more time and tapping twice on her wrist watch while giving a well meaning look to Louis.

He could only nod, taking his water bottle and the med box with him up the stairs.

It didn’t take long from the time he laid down in bed and actually fell asleep. A dreamless night, a blessing in disguise.


End file.
